YOUR  BOY  AND 
HIS  TRAINING 


YOUR  BOY  AND 
HIS  TRAINING 

A  PRACTICAL  TREATISE  ON  BOY-TRAINING 


BY 
EDWIN  PULLER 

FORMES  PRESIDENT,  SCOUTMASTERS'  ASSOCIATION  OF  ST.  LOUIS 


NEW  YORK  LONDON 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

1916 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


THIS  VOLUME  IS  AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED  TO 
THE  MEN  OF  TOMORROW,  WITH  THE  HOPE  THAT  THE 
THOUGHTS  EXPRESSED  IN  THESE  PAGES  WILL  AID 
THEIR  PARENTS  AND  TEACHERS,  IN  SOME  DEGREE,  TO 
A  BETTER  UNDERSTANDING  OF  BOY -NATURE  AND 
BOY-TRAINING. 


335054 


PREFACE 

THE  average  boy  is  not  understood  by  the  average 
parent.  This  misunderstanding  produces  not  only  in- 
different training  of  the  boy  but  also  soul  stress  for  the 
parent  and  his  son.  Intelligent  training  will  improve 
the  quality  of  the  man  into  whom  your  son  will  de- 
velop. To  be  able  to  give  such  training,  the  parent 
must  first  know  how.  The  education  of  the  parent 
in  the  subject  of  boy-training  is  the  pretentious  pur- 
pose of  this  volume,  which  I  approach  with  full  con- 
sciousness of  my  own  limitations. 

This  book  is  the  result  of  my  association  with  and 
study  of  large  numbers  of  boys  from  ten  to  twenty 
years  of  age,  and  in  it  have  been  embodied,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  some  ideas  of  other  writers  on  this 
subject. 

I  have  endeavored  to  present  in  elementary  form  a 
brief,  practical  study  in  adolescent  psychology  and  its 
application  to  boy-training,  written  in  language  which 
the  average  parent,  guardian  or  teacher  can  readily 
understand.  With  this  end  in  view,  there  has  been 
an  elimination  of  technical  terms,  as  far  as  may  be 
— even  at  possible  risk  of  scientific  inaccuracy  of  state- 
ment. It  will  not  be  necessary  for  the  average  reader 
to  peruse  these  pages  with  a  dictionary  at  hand.  They 

vii 


PREFACE 

were  written  not  for  psychologists,  but  for  parents,  in 
the  hope  that  a  work  both  readable  and  comprehensible 
will  acquaint  the  average  reader  with  the  laws  govern- 
ing boy  life  and  their  application  to  his  training  with 
greater  clarity  than  a  work  abounding  in  abstruse 
phraseology  and  scientific  nomenclature. 

The  pages  which  follow  will  be  devoted  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  problems  of  the  normal  boy — the  same 
red-blooded,  harum-scarum  youngster  who  occupies 
such  a  large  place  in  your  life — and  not  especially 
to  the  delinquent  boy.  I  indulge  the  hope  that  this 
volume  may  aid  you,  in  some  degree,  to  a  better 
understanding  of  your  boy,  his  problems  and  their 
solution. 

EDWIN  PULLER. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  ETERNAL  BOY-PROBLEM       ...         1 

Boy-problems  are  as  universal  as  boys — 
Boys  too  often  regarded  as  necessary  evils 
— Necessity  for  training — How  to  study 
the  boy — Tendencies  in  present-day  edu- 
cation of  children  —  Character-culture 
should  come  first — The  home  is  the  place 
and  the  parent  the  agency — Boys  more 
difficult  to  train  than  girls — The  boy's 
viewpoint — Parental  indifference  to  boy 
training — Each  boy  is  an  individual 
problem. 

II.  PARENTAL   RESPONSIBILITY        .         .         .       15 

Causes  of  waywardness — Wrong  training 
and  bad  environment — Parental  ignorance 
concerning  boy  training — An  instance — 
Heredity — -Accountability  of  the  parent 
— Spending  money — Laxity  of  discipline 
—Average  parent  not  fully  equipped  for 
his  job. 

ix 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

III.     CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY         ....       30 

Table  of  psychic  characteristics  at  several 
ages — Infancy  and  imagination — Early 
boyhood  and  individualism — Early  adoles- 
cence and  hero  worship — Later  adoles- 
cence and  thoughtful  mental  attitude — 
Age  when  puberty  occurs — Period  of 
motor  activity. 


IV.     ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY         ...       52 

Adolescence  the  period  of  storm  and  stress 
— Change  from  childhood  to  manhood — 
Puberty — Physical  indicia — Mental  in- 
dicia —  Psychic  disturbances  —  Truancy 
and  wanderlust — Lack  of  continuity  of 
purpose  and  action — Proximity  to  the  sav- 
age state — Humor — Sex  consciousness 

o 

and  its  manifestations — Love  affairs — 
Plasticity  of  mind — Will  power  appears 
— Age  of  discretion — Cycles  of  suscepti- 
bility to  religious  influences — Age  of  ex- 
perimentation— Hero  worship  and  its 
manifestations — Object  of  hero  worship 
— Gratitude  lacking — Reflective  period — 
Introspection — Sense  of  perspective  is 
distorted — Visionary  ambitions — Dislike 
of  older  boy  for  younger — Will  power, 
mental  and  moral  stature  attained. 
X 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

V.  THE  BOY'S  VIEWPOINT      .         .         ,         .80 

Difference  of  viewpoint  at  differing 
psychic  ages — Youth  and  age  contrasted 
— The  boy's  desire  for  physical  expres- 
sion— Inability  for  sustained  mental  or 
physical  effort — Adult  must  put  himself 
in  boy's  place  to  understand  him — The 
natural  adult  leader  of  boys — Boy  lives  in 
the  present — Parent  must  do  child's 
thinking  for  him — Injustice  to  boy  from 
failure  to  consider  his  standards. 

VI.  OBEDIENCE 92 

The  cornerstone  of  child  training — Chil- 
dren's attitude  toward  parents — Its  causes 
and  effects — Character  is  predicated  on 
obedience — Parental  prohibitions  which 
cause  disobedience — Habit  of  obedience 
formed  most  easily  in  early  childhood — 
How  obedience  may  be  cultivated — Com- 
mands must  be  founded  on  justice  and 
reason — Disobedience  results  from  pa- 
rental caprice  or  injustice — Illustrations 
— The  rational  quality  in  the  boy — Im- 
portance of  paternal  example. 

VII.  THE  REPRESSIVE  METHOD  OF  TRAINING     lO^ 

Age  when  training  should  begin — Re- 
pressive method  is  negative — Illustrations 

xi 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

of  repressive  commands — Their  effect  on 
the  boy — The  play  spirit  in  the  young — 
A  factor  in  mental  and  moral  growth — 
The  passive  system  of  training — Evils  of 
lavish  supply  of  money — Effects  of  re- 
pression are  depressing — Acts  should  not 
be  prohibited  without  suggestion  of  other 
acts  to  fill  the  void  created — Mental  in- 
spiration of  praise. 

VIII.  THE  SUGGESTIVE  METHOD  OF  TRAINING     117 

Necessity  for  formulating  definite  plan 
of  training — Impossible  to  state  a  simple 
rule — American  habit  of  drifting  out  of 
touch  with  offspring — Duty  of  fathers  to 
continue  intimacy  with  sons  through  ado- 
lescence— American  children  not  general- 
ly well  bred — English,  German,  French 
and  Japanese  methods  contrasted — Sug- 
gestion is  informative  and  inspirational 
— Negative  commands  produce  mental 
hostility  and  will  combat — Illustrations 
of  effect  of  suggestion — A  father's  plan 
— The  big  brother  comradeship  of  father 
and  son. 

IX.  THE  HABIT  OF  FALSEHOOD       .         .         .132 

Imagination  a  characteristic  of  childhood 
— Fantasy  as  real  to  childhood  as  reality 

xii 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

— The  cause  of  lies — Illustrations — The 
fisherman's  lie — Clarity  of  mental  proc- 
esses largely  determines  whether  a  state- 
ment is  a  lie  or  an  untruth — The  lie  of 
the  older  boy — Desire  to  avoid  punish- 
ment the  chief  cause  of  falsehood — The 
remedy  for  falsehood — Moral  suasion,  its 
definition  and  application. 

X.  CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT     ....     143 

The  place  occupied  by  corporal  punish- 
ment as  a  corrective  measure — Reasons 
advanced  for  its  use — Illustration  from  a 
banker's  experience— Average  child  does 
not  rebel  against  authority — But  only 
against  authority  unjustly  or  harshly  ex- 
ercised— The  boy's  view  of  corporal  pun- 
ishment— Breaking  the  boy's  will — Un- 
just or  excessive  punishments  conduce  to 
lying — Effect  of  nagging  on  children — 
Mental  versus  physical  punishment — Ef- 
fective substitutes  for  corporal  punish- 
ment. 

XI.  THE   CIGARETTE   HABIT  .         .         .         .157 

Effect  of  nicotine  on  human  organism — A 
physician's  opinion — Tobacco  and  the 
adult — Age  when  boys  acquire  the  habit 

xiii 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

— Effects  of  tobacco  on  adolescents — 
Opinion  of  Dr.  Seaver  based  on  physical 
measurements  of  smokers  and  nonsmok- 
ers — Cigarette  most  pernicious  form  of 
tobacco — Influences  which  actuate  boys  to 
acquire  the  habit — Poisons  in  the  cigar- 
ette— Acrolein  and  carbonic  oxide — 
Moral  effects — Juvenile  criminals  are  gen- 
erally cigarette  fiends — Methods  used  to 
dissuade  boys  from  beginning — Sugges- 
tion of  a  remedy  for  those  who  have  con- 
tracted the  habit. 

XII.    BOY  GANGS 173 

Gregarious  instinct  in  boys — Craving  for 
association  with  their  own  kind — Two 
kinds  of  boy  gangs — The  supervised 
gang — The  unsupervised  gang — Illustra- 
tions of  each— The  gang  leader  and  his 
qualifications— The  necessity  for  a  meet- 
ing place — Morals  of  unsupervised  gang 
always  lower  than  morals  of  its  individual 
constituents— Motives  for  gang  activities 
-Their  code  of  honor— Street  gangs  are 
training  schools  for  delinquents— Gang 
spirit  inherent  in  all  boy  nature— Super- 
vised gangs  and  their  influence  on  char- 
acter development-Necessity  for  urging 
boy  to  join  good  gang. 

xiv 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

XIII.  THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE         .         .     183 

The  magic  of  the  name  Scout — The  Boy 
Scouts  of  America — What  the  movement 
is — Ranks  and  requirements — Good  turns 
and  illustrations — Appeal  of  uniform  and 
hikes  to  boy  before  joining — Purpose  of 
organization  is  character  building — A 
former  method  of  teaching  ethics — Scout 
camps  and  hikes — The  camp-fire  tale  as 
a  means  of  training — The  qualities  which 
Scout  associations  develop — Boy  Scout 
organization  founded  on  sound  psychol- 
ogy— A  denatured  gang — Opinions  of 
sociologists — The  universality  of  its  ap- 
peal to  boyhood — An  efficient  method  of 
training  boys  in  mass — It  keeps  the  boy 
busy — The  busy  boy  is  the  best  boy — A 
field  of  social  service  for  the  adult. 

XIV.  JUVENILE  READING        ....     206 

Potent  influence  of  books  on  the  boy — 
Next  to  environment  and  companions — 
Two-fold  value  of  literature — Desire  of 
boy  for  something  to  read — He  reads 
for  entertainment;  studies  because  com- 
pelled to — Reading  must  be  suited  to  men- 
tal and  psychological  requirements — 
Fairy  tales — Adventure  tales — Informa- 
tive books — Dime  novel  and  nickel  library 
XV 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

— Their  effect  on  morals  and  literary  taste 
— The  bad  book  in  the  outward  dress  of 
good  fiction — The  psychological  require- 
ment for  thrilling  adventure  tales — Comic 
Sunday  supplements — Ideal  companions 
for  boys  found  in  best  books — Doses  of 
literature  as  remedies  for  diseases  of 
character — Stories  of  animal  life — The 
juvenile  magazine — A  list  of  books  useful 
for  outlining  a  course  of  juvenile  reading. 

XV.  AGENCIES  FOR  SEX-INSTRUCTION       .         .227 

Importance  of  accurate  sex  knowledge — 
Misinformation  acquired  at  a  very  early 
age — Necessity  for  scientific  instruction 
— Former  antipathy  to  discussion — Par- 
ent is  natural  teacher  of  sex — Neglect  of 
parental  duty — Necessity  for  other  agen- 
cies of  instruction — Grammar  schools, 
high  schools,  colleges,  etc. — Danger  of 
premature  sex  excitation — Individuals 
who  are  best  adapted  to  teach — Teacher, 
physician,  biologist,  special  lecturer — 
Opinions  for  and  against  the  school  as 
agency  for  sex  instruction. 

XVI.  ON  OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION  .         .238 

Periods  in  child's  life  when  instruction 
should  be  given — Instruction  should  be 
suited  to  his  psychological  requirements — 

xvi 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Mother  should  begin  instruction — Method 
known  as  the  biological  approach — Na- 
ture and  amount  of  instruction  necessary 
— Father  should  assume  instruction  at 
puberty — Necessary  admonitions — Influ- 
ence of  theatrical  productions  with  a  sex 
appeal — Musical  comedies,  burlesque  and 
vaudeville  shows — Sex  hygiene  societies 
— A  list  of  pamphlets  published — A  list  of 
books  recommended. 

XVII.  CHILDREN'S  COURTS     ....     254* 

An  instrumentality  for  reclaiming  the 
wayward  boy — The  state  formerly  re- 
garded delinquent  boy  as  a  criminal — 
New  attitude  toward  dependent  and  de- 
linquent children — Their  mental  and 
moral  concepts  not  matured — Infractions 
of  law  are  manifestations  of  moral  dis- 
ease which  it  is  the  state's  business  to 
cure — Child  under  sixteen  cannot  be  a 
criminal — Delinquent  child  is  a  ward  of 
the  state — The  Juvenile  Court — Methods 
of  dealing  with  boys — The  probation  of- 
ficer— Laws  for  control  of  delinquent  par- 
ents. 

XVIII.  CONCLUSIONS 270 

Every  boy  has  inalienable  right  to  be  well 

trained — Basis  of  boy  training  is  parent 

xvii 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

training — Insight,  tact  and  patience 
necessary — Boy's  need  of  father's  com- 
panionship— Certain  physical  abnormali- 
ties affect  intellect  and  character — Effects 
of  heredity  contrasted  with  environment 
— All  boys  possess  a  common  nature — 
Summary  of  rules  bearing  on  boy  train- 
ing. 


YOUR  BOY  AND 
HIS  TRAINING 


YOUR  BOY  AND   HIS 
TRAINING 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  ETERNAL  BOY-PROBLEM 

He  who  helps  a  child  helps  humanity  with  a  dis- 
tinctness, with  an  immediateness,  which  no  other 
help  given  to  human  creatures  in  any  other  stage 
of  their  human  life  can  possibly  give  again. 

— BISHOP  PHILLIPS  BROOKS. 

BOY-PROBLEMS,  like  boys,  are  al- 
ways with  us.  Wherever  there  is  a 
boy  there  are  problems  to  be  solved.  The 
perfect  boy  may  live  somewhere — but  not  in 
my  immediate  neighborhood.  Even  though 
he  possesses  many  of  the  attributes  of  per- 
fection, he  will  be  found  wanting  in  indus- 
try, or  thrift,  or  orderliness,  or  courtesy,  or 
studiousness.  He  may  even  show  such 

1 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

traits  as  disobedience,  untruthfulness,  self- 
ishness, truancy,  thievery,  or  immorality. 
The  complete  boy  does  not  just  grow — he 
is  builded  and  the  parent  is  both  architect 
and  builder. 

All  parents  at  some  time,  and  some  par- 
ents at  all  times,  regard  boys  as  necessary 
evils,  to  be  endured  with  varying  degrees 
of  patience.  We  formerly  believed  that 
boys  should  be  seldom  seen  and  less  fre- 
quently heard.  The  young  barbarian  was 
and  is  now  tolerated  for  the  time  being  be- 
cause of  our  hope  that  he  will  outgrow  his 
rowdyism.  We  are  disposed  to  let  nature 
take  its  course  with  the  juvenile  savage  in- 
stead of  bothering  our  heads  with  the  effort 
to  understand  him  or  to  solve  his  problems. 
But  to  train  the  boy  intelligently  we  must 
first  train  ourselves  so  that  we  can  under- 
stand him  and  guide  him  through  the  vari- 
ous stages  of  his  development. 

2 


THE  ETERNAL  BOY-PROBLEM 

Intelligent  training  is  the  birthright  of  \ 
every  child.  If  he  has  not  received  it,  he 
has  been  cheated.  The  training  of  the  child 
up  to  perfect  maturity  is  the  highest  duty  as 
well  as  the  most  difficult  task  which  devolves 
upon  parents.  The  performance  of  this 
duty  is,  fortunately,  lightened  by  the  pleas- 
ure of  association  with  the  joyousness  of 
childhood,  but  the  real  reward  of  the  parent 
for  years  of  patient,  watchful,  intelligent  su- 
pervision is  not  only  the  consciousness  of 
duty  well  done  but  the  profound  joy  expe- 
rienced in  aiding  the  unfoldment  of  an  im- 
mortal soul. 

The  study  of  childhood  possesses  a  fasci- 
nation for  the  student  commensurate  with 
its  importance  to  humanity.  It  is  both  eas- 
ier and  pleasanter  to  study  the  child  in  the 
concrete  than  children  in  the  abstract.  But 
it  is  obvious  that  no  comprehensive  conclu- 
sions on  the  subject  of  child- training  can  be 

3 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

deduced  from  the  study  of  a  single  child. 
The  varying  manifestations  of  different  na- 
tures and  temperaments  require  wide  ob- 
servation, covering  many  subjects,  before 
correct  conclusions  as  to  cause  and  effect 
can  be  drawn  or  a  systematic  philosophy  can 
be  evolved.  We  must  study  the  concrete 
boy  in  large  numbers  to  be  able  to  formu- 
late abstract  principles  of  boy-training. 
"The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man,"  may 
be  paraphrased  into  "the  proper  study  of 
boykind  is  boy."  Today  we  know  the  boy 
better  than  ever  before.  He  has  been  stud- 
ied, watched,  weighed,  analyzed,  synthe- 
tized,  tested,  classified  and  labeled  in  all  his 
varied  aspects.  We  have  transformed  our 
personal  knowledge  of  him  into  scientific 
knowledge;  and  various  manifestations  of 
his  activities  which  were  formerly  called 
"pure  cussedness"  are  now  recognized  as 
ebullitions  of  superabundant  vitality  which 

4 


THE  ETERNAL  BOY-PROBLEM 

have  been  denied  a  natural  outlet  and 
therefore  find  expression  in  prohibited 
forms. 

The  present-day  tendency  in  the  educa- 
tion of  American  children  is  to  emphasize 
the  importance  of  knowledge,  health,  and 
character  in  the  order  in  which  they  are  here 
set  down.  To  confine  the  term  "education" 
solely  or  chiefly  to  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge is  to  limit  its  meaning  to  its  usual  syn- 
onym of  instruction  or  teaching.  In  its 
truer  and  broader  sense  it  implies  the  disci- 
pline and  development  of  the  moral,  physi- 
cal, and  spiritual  faculties,  as  well  as  the 
purely  intellectual  faculty,  for  it  is  only 
through  such  comprehensive  development 
that  ideal  maturity  can  be  approached. 
Sheer  intellectual  power,  resulting  from  the 
systematic  acquisition  of  knowledge  and 
training  of  the  mind,  produces  a  one-sided 
individual  who  lacks  the  restraints  and  guid- 

5 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

ance  imposed  by  moral  and  ethical  concepts. 
He  is  like  an  ocean  liner  of  tremendous 
speed  and  power  but  without  chart,  com- 
pass, or  rudder.  It  is  obvious  that  the 
intellectually  brilliant  crook,  devoting  his 
mental  gifts  to  the  accomplishment  of  his 
criminal  purposes,  is  a  less  worthy  and  less 
useful  citizen  than  the  laborer  of  high  char- 
acter but  limited  knowledge. 

The  entire  trend  of  our  present  sys- 
tem of  education  is  to  overemphasize  the 
importance  of  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge and  to  underemphasize  the  necessity 
for  the  building  of  character.  And  this  is 
the  chief  fault  with  our  otherwise  excellent 
public-school  system  of  education,  which, 
circumscribed  by  public  prejudices  ground- 
ed in  widely  differing  religious  beliefs, 
steers  clear  of  comprehensive  moral  training 
because  of  its  intimate  coherence  with  relig- 
ious and  spiritual  training.  The  meager 

6 


THE  ETERNAL  BOY-PROBLEM 

moral  training  which  the  public  school  af- 
fords is  merely  incidental  to  its  primary 
function  of  imparting  knowledge.  This  de- 
ficiency must  be  supplied  primarily  by  the 
home,  and  secondarily  by  the  Sunday  school 
and  the  church  in  laying  the  foundations  of 
character  strong  and  deep  before  the  child 
reaches  the  school  age  and  by  continuing 
the  work  on  the  moral  and  spiritual  super- 
structure until  maturity  beholds  the  building 
completed  on  all  sides.  When  we  come  to 
realize  that  the  true  function  of  education  is 
first  of  all  to  build  strong  character,  second 
to  develop  a  virile  physique,  and  last  of  all 
to  impart  knowledge  and  discipline  the  men- 
tal faculties,  we  then  will  have  evolved  an 
educational  system  which  will  be  effective 
in  accomplishing  its  real  purpose — the  evo- 
lution of  the  child  into  the  symmetrically; 
equipped  adult.  This  is  the  eternal  boy- 
problem. 

7 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

The  home  is  the  place  and  the  parent  is 
the  agency  for  character  culture.  Every  fa- 
ther of  boys  ought  to  be  a  boy-expert.  And 
he  can  be,  by  devoting  to  this  most  impor- 
tant of  all  subjects  a  tithe  of  the  study  which 
he  devotes  to  his  business  or  to  his  profes- 
sion. Many  parents  rely  entirely  upon  in- 
stinct or  natural  inclinations — which  are  in- 
fluenced largely  by  mental  and  temperamen- 
tal conditions — as  their  guide  in  boy  train- 
ing. An  inactive  liver  too  frequently  de- 
termines our  attitude  toward  our  offspring. 
Is  it  fair  to  the  son  that  the  parent  blindly 
and  blunderingly  pursues  his  natural  incli- 
nations in  training  his  son,  instead  of  avail- 
ing himself  of  the  results  of  the  research  and 
the  thought  which  have  already  been  given 

this  subject? 

i  • « 

More  boys  go  wrong  than  girls,  of  which 
fact  the  records  of  juvenile  courts,  reforma- 
tories, and  houses  of  detention  bear  ample 

8 


THE  ETERNAL  BOY-PROBLEM 

evidence ;  and  they  are  more  difficult  to  train, 
develop,  and  discipline  than  girls.  This  is 
due  to  the  differences  in  their  psychological 
processes.  Girlhood  finds  ample  oppor- 
tunity for  its  development  in  the  seclusion 
of  the  home.  The  future  function  of  the 
woman  child  is  to  be  the  home-maker  and  the 
bearer  of  children,  and  her  training  for  this 
divine  responsibility  can  be  accomplished 
best  amid  the  refining  influences  and  pro- 
tecting care  which  the  home  affords.  The 
future  of  the  man  child  is  to  be  the  bread- 
winner of  the  family  and  the  burden-bearer 
of  civilization.  The  training  necessary  to 
produce  such  diverse  results  must  be  as  dif- 
ferent as  the  respective  life-works  of  man 
and  woman.  Boyhood  requires,  among 
other  things,  adventure,  rough  sports  and 
out-of-door  activities  for  its  development. 
Boys  are  less  obedient,  less  tractable,  and 
less  amenable  to  discipline  than  girls,  there- 

9 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

fore  their  training  is  correspondingly  diffi- 
cult and  involved.  We  should  not  expect  to 
understand  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  boy 
more  easily  than  his  anatomy  and  physiol- 
ogy- 

The  boy  sees  things  from  a  point  of  view 
different  from  that  of  the  adult,  based  on 
psychological  differences.  The  mature  in- 
dividual cannot  obtain  the  boy's  viewpoint 
unless  he  is  able  to  put  himself  in  his  place. 
To  do  this  he  must  know  the  child's  chang- 
ing mental  processes  and  the  evolution  of 
his  moral  perceptions  which  are  manifested 
in  the  four  periods  of  his  development,  in 
each  of  which  he  exhibits  a  personality  as 
far  apart  as  those  of  four  individuals  of 
widely  differing  natures.  The  boy  at  six, 
ten,  fourteen,  and  eighteen  years  of  age  is 
four  different  personalities,  and  he  requires 
four  different  methods  of  treatment.  These 
psychological  prescriptions  are  as  dissimilar 
10 


THE  ETERNAL  BOY-PROBLEM 

as  the  medical  prescriptions  for  boils, 
measles,  influenza,  and  typhoid.  The  meth- 
ods and  plans  suited  for  one  period  are  un- 
suited  for  another.  The  realization  of  this 
basic  truth  is  the  first  step  toward  the  solu- 
tion of  your  boy's  problems. 

No  parent  who  stops  with  provision  for 
the  physical  and  intellectual  demands  of  his 
child  has  done  his  full  duty.  It  may  appear 
trite  to  say  that  he  should  go  further  and 
train  the  character  and  the  soul;  but  failure 
in  this  essential  is  a  standing  indictment 
against  many  Christian  homes  today.  Par- 
ental indifference  to  and  ignorance  of  boy- 
psychology  are  the  causes  which  have 
produced  untold  thousands  of  delinquent  or 
semi-delinquent  boys.  Your  boy  may,  and 
thousands  of  boys  do,  weather  the  storm  of 
adolescence,  guided  only  by  the  blundering 
but  loving  heart  which  has  neither  accurate 
knowledge  nor  understanding  of  his  nature; 

11 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

but  such  results  are  fortuitous  rather  than 
certain. 

More  parents  have  mastered  the  rules  of 
bridge  than  have  mastered  the  principles 
of  child  culture.  The  training  of  the  boy, 
despite  its  tremendous  personal  signifi- 
cance to  him  and  to  our  homes,  is  less  fre- 
quently and  less  seriously  discussed  than 
politics,  the  weather,  or  the  latest  style 
of  dress.  Too  many  boys  are  reared 
like  their  colored  sister,  Topsy,  who  "jest 
V^growed." 

Deep  down  in  our  hearts  we  feel  that  we 
know  much  more  than  our  neighbors  about 
the  upbringing  of  a  son,  because  of  our  su- 
perior intuition  and  better  judgment,  even 
though  we  have  never  qualified  for  the  job 
by  study,  research,  or  thought.  Too  many 
of  us  believe  we  are  "natural-born"  boy 
trainers.  When  our  boy  goes  wrong,  it  is 
our  profound  conviction  that  it  is  due  wholly 
12 


THE  ETERNAL  BOY-PROBLEM 

to  the  influence  of  the  bad  boys  with  whom 
he  associates.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  just 
as  likely  that  our  Johnny  has  corrupted  his 
associates  as  that  they  are  the  cause  of  his 
moral  infractions.  Never,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, do  we  blame  ourselves  either  for 
the  poor  quality  of  his  training  or  for  per- 
mitting his  evil  associations.  His  delin- 
quencies reflect  on  us  and  hurt  our  pride, 
but  we  palliate  the  hurt  by  attributing  them 
to  causes  which  do  not  involve  us.  We  are 
too  ready  to  prove  an  alibi  when  called  to 
the  court  of  conscience  and  charged  with 
responsibility. 

The  average  parent  bitterly  resents  per- 
sonal advice  relating  to  the  upbringing  of 
his  children,  but  this  resentment  probably 
has  less  relevancy  to  reading  a  book  on  boy 
training  because  it  is  impersonal  in  its  ap- 
plication and  affords  the  reader  the  election 
of  taking  as  much  or  as  little  of  it  to  himself 
13 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

as  his  reason,  judgment,  vanity,  or  egotism 
may  dictate. 

All  boys  have  a  common  nature  whose  de- 
velopment proceeds  according  to  fixed  laws ; 
but  diversities  of  temperament  and  charac- 
ter differentiate  individuals  and  thus  make 
each  boy  an  individual  problem.  The  solu- 
tion of  that  problem  is  your  job. 


CHAPTER  II 

PARENTAL  RESPONSIBILITY 

THE  wayward  boy  is  often  the  son  of 
a  wayward  parent. 

Waywardness  results  not  so  much  from  4 
the  effects  of  heredity  as  from  lack  of  train-     \ 
ing.    Wrong  training,  lack  of  training,  and 
bad  environment  are  the  great,  compelling 
influences  toward  delinquency,  which  over- 
shadow all  other  causes  of  juvenile  way- 
wardness; and  for  such  causes  parents  are 
directly  and  primarily  responsible. 

This  is  a  severe  indictment  of  parents,  but 
not  more  severe  than  the  consequences  of 
their  neglect  of  duty  warrant.  Many  par- 
ents act  on  the  presumption  that  their  obli- 
gation is  fulfilled  by  supplying  the  child 
15 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

with  food,  clothing,  shelter,  and  school,  for- 
getting the  equally  important  duty  of  de- 
veloping his  moral  and  spiritual  nature. 
Such  conditions  are  usually  the  result  of  in- 
difference, a  sin  of  omission,  and  only  rarely 
do  they  result  from  bad  precept  and  exam- 
ple. 

In  the  larger  number  of  cases,  the  way- 
ward parent  is  such  because  of  ignorance  of 
the  scope  of  his  duty,  or  because  of  his  dele- 
gation of  moral  and  religious  training  to  the 
school  or  some  other  agency  not  fully 
equipped  for  the  task.  It  is  seldom  that  a 
parent  does  not  earnestly  desire  high  moral 
character  in  his  offspring.  He  hopes  in  a 
blind,  inchoate  way  that  his  son  will  become 
a  well-rounded  man — physically,  mentally, 
morally,  socially,  spiritually.  By  what 
means  that  hope  is  to  fructify  he  does  not 
know.  He  is  groping  in  the  dark,  hoping 
against  hope  that  the  miracle  of  evolution 
16 


PARENTAL  RESPONSIBILITY         V 

will  result  in  perfection,  without  the  em- 
ployment of  the  methods  and  agencies  at        / 
his  command  which  will  assist  to  that  end.        J 

The  first  step,  then,  in  the  training  of  the^ 
boy  is  the  training  of  the  parent.    And  what 
applies  to  the  father  usually  applies,  with 
less  force,  to  the  mother. 

When  we  reclaim  wayward  parents,  we 
shall  reclaim  wayward  boys.  The  first  step 
toward  reclamation  is  the  awakening  of 
their  sense  of  responsibility — the  driving 
home  of  the  consciousness  of  stewardship. 
"Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  has  still 
stronger  application  to  the  father  and  the 
mother  of  a  son.  Yours  is  the  responsibility 
for  the  child's  presence  in  the  world ;  yours 
is  the  responsibility  for  supplying  the  con- 
ventional comforts  on  which  physical  life 
depends;  but  still  more  emphatically  yours 
is  the  responsibility  of  furnishing  the  guid- 
ing hand  which  will  pilot  the  frail  bark  of 
17 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

youth  through  the  storm  and  stress  of  ado- 
lescence. During  infancy  he  is  anchored  in 
the  harbor  of  home,  surrounded  by  love  and 
physical  comfort;  during  early  boyhood  his 
bark  is  drifting  on  the  current  toward  the 
sea;  while  the  dawn  of  adolescence  plunges 
him  into  an  unknown  and  uncharted  ocean, 
without  rudder  or  compass  by  which  to 
avoid  the  sunken  reefs  of  danger  and  the 
rocks  which  wreck  the  development  of  char- 
acter. The  morally  obligatory  duty  of 
child  culture  must  be  encouraged,  revived, 
trained,  and  put  into  operation. 

Eugene ,  age  13,  was  reared  by  an 

indulgent  father,  after  his  mother's  death. 
A  stepmother  entered  the  home  when  the  lad 
was  nine.  He  was  a  robust  boy,  athletic  and 
active,  handsome,  lovable,  but  mentally  lazy, 
backward  in  school,  without  continuity  of 
purpose  or  action,  inclined  to  falsehood  and 
evasion,  willful,  disobedient,  extravagant 
18 


PARENTAL  RESPONSIBILITY 

and  spoiled.  He  remarked  one  day  to  a 
companion,  in  my  hearing,  "Dad's  a  stingy 
guy.  He  only  gives  me  five  dollars  a  week 
spending  money." 

This  boy's  problem  was  a  serious  one,  but 
not  hopeless  by  any  means.  The  delinquent 
parent  was  responsible  for  the  delinquency 
of  his  son.  Engrossed  in  the  cares  of  mani- 
fold business  interests,  he  "had  no  time"  for 
the  training  of  his  boy.  He  failed  to  realize 
that  making  a  son  is  more  important  than 
making  money.  If  he  had  given  his  busi- 
ness no  more  thought  and  judgment  than 
he  gave  his  son,  he  would  be  a  financial 
bankrupt.  As  it  is,  the  son  probably  will  be  a 
character  bankrupt.  At  the  present  time  his 
moral  liabilities  exceed  his  assets — a  poor  be- 
ginning for  the  business  of  building  a  human 
life.  His  affairs  should  be  in  the  hands  of  a 
receiver — a  boy-expert  who  will  rehabilitate 
the  boy — or,  better  still,  who  will  arouse  the 

19 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

parent  to  recognize  his  duty  and  do  it.  The 
intelligent  parent  is  the  natural  and  best 
teacher  of  his  own  child. 

Up-to-date  horticulturists  and  agricultur- 
ists avail  themselves  of  the  sum  total  of  scien- 
tific knowledge  concerning  their  respective 
professions.  Unscientific,  misdirected,  and 
indifferent  methods  produce  failure;  in- 
ferior fruits  and  grains  of  limited  yield  do 
not  pay.  The  importance  of  many  things  is 
measured  by  a  financial  standard.  When 
reduced  to  a  monetary  basis,  production  is 
of  sufficient  importance  to  call  forth  the  best 
research,  skill,  and  thought  of  the  individual. 
Child-culture  is  more  important  than  horti- 
culture, even  though  its  benefits  cannot  be 
measured  in  dollars  and  cents.  The  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  spends  millions  of 
dollars  every  year,  largely  in  the  perfection 
of  cattle  and  hogs.  The  improvement  of  the 
breed  of  hogs  is  not  more  important  than  the 
20 


PARENTAL  RESPONSIBILITY 

improvement  of  the  breed  of  boys.  Person- 
ally, I  prefer  the  boy  to  the  hog.  He  is  just 
as  great  a  necessity  in  the  human  economy 
and,  besides,  he  is  much  more  companion- 
able. The  best  crop  we  raise  is  children. 
Why  not  improve  their  breed?  The  vanity 
of  the  parent  may  answer  that  they  already 
are  splendidly  endowed  by  heredity  with  all 
the  virtues  of  mind,  morals,  and  body  pos- 
sessed by  their  progenitors.  But  heredity 
is  no  such  miracle  worker.  If  heredity  has 
equipped  the  child  with  a  perfect  physical 
machine  it  still  remains  necessary  to  teach 
him  not  only  how  to  run  it,  but  how  to  keep 
it  in  good  condition.  The  perfect  body  will 
not,  unaided,  stay  perfect,  nor  will  it  develop 
the  strong  mind  and  character.  All  of  these 
— and  more — are  required  to  make  the  per- 
fect man. 

"Better  boys"  should  be  our  slogan.    The 
accountability  of  the  parent  for  his  sacred 

21 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

trust  cannot  be  evaded.  It  is  the  one  great, 
upstanding,  overshadowing  duty  concurrent 
with  parenthood.  The  failure  to  appreciate 
its  importance  is  due  to  many  causes. 
Among  them  may  be  mentioned  the  com- 
plexity of  our  present-day  civilization  with 
its  incessant  demands  upon  the  time  and 
strength  of  parental  In  some  instances  the 
stress  and  struggle  incident  to  earning  a 
living  leave  little  time  for  the  development 
of  the  child.  This  is  especially  true  in  those 
homes  where  squalid  poverty  abides.  The 
husband,  exhausted  by  the  grinding  toil 
which  he  has  exchanged  for  a  scant  wage, 
returns  home  at  night  and  finds  a  wife  worn 
in  mind  and  body  by  her  task  of  maintaining 
a  home  on  less  than  is  requisite  for  livable 
conditions.  Neither  is  fit  to  perform  the 
larger  duties  of  parenthood.  Add  to  this, 
sickness,  accident,  unemployment,  intemper- 
ance, and  child  labor,  and  the  cup  is  full. 
22 


PARENTAL  RESPONSIBILITY 

The  toll  of  toil  is  wretched  childhood.  The  \ 
children  are  neglected  in  everything  except 
a  bare  physical  existence.  The  son  of  such 
a  home  naturally  takes  to  the  street  where 
he  pursues  his  play,  unguided  and  untaught. 
The  result  is  a  street  gamin  with  all  his  in- 
herent potentialities  for  good  submerged  be- 
neath the  delinquency  and  vice  which  are 
bred  in  the  street.  A  continuous  procession 
of  such  children  passes  through  our  juvenile 
courts  every  day.  Such  pitiable  cases — and 
they  are  many — are  partly  grounded  in  the 
maladjustment  of  economic  conditions.  The 
remedy  lies  in  a  change  of  environment  in 
which  society  as  a  whole  must  take  part;  in 
vocational  training;  a  more  equitable  ad- 
justment of  wage  to  labor;  workmen's 
compensation  laws;  health  and  accident 
insurance;  inculcation  of  ideas  of  tem- 
perance; training  along  moral,  domestic, 
sanitary,  and  hygienic  lines;  and  general 

23 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

education,  including  a  knowledge  of  child 
training. 

Conditions  are  different,  however,  in  the 
better  homes  of  our  citizens.  There  the  de- 
basing consequences  of  sordid  poverty  are 
absent.  But  still  the  two  homes  are,  in  many 
instances,  identical  in  their  lack  of  moral 
training,  although  the  causes  are  different. 
In  the  one  home,  knowledge  and  capacity 
are  wanting.  In  the  other,  knowledge  and 
capacity  are  present  but  neglected.  It  is 
these  latter  cases  of  parental  neglect  of  duty 
which  warrant  the  appellation,  "wayward 
parent."  It  sometimes  requires  the  alarm 
clock  of  filial  delinquency  to  awaken  the 
parent  from  his  somnolence  of  indifference. 
The^  damage  has  then  been  done.  They 
hasten  to  lock  the  stable  afterTKehorse  is 
stolen,  instead  of  taking  precautionary 
measures  at  the  needful  time.  "The  diffi- 
cult cases  to  deal  with,"  remarks  Judge  Ju- 
24 


PARENTAL  RESPONSIBILITY 

lius  N.  Mayer  of  the  Court  of  Special  Ses- 
sions (Children's  Court)  of  New  York  City, 
"are  the  cases  of  children  whose  parents  are 
industrious  and  reputable,  but  who  seem  to 
have  no  conception  at  all  of  their  duties 
toward  their  children.  They  fail  to  make  a 
study  of  the  child.  They  fail  to  understand 
him.  Frequently  the  father,  who  could  well 
afford  to  give  his  child  recreation,  or  a  little 
spending  money,  will  hold  his  son  by  so  tight 
a  rein  that  the  child  is  bound  to  break  away. 
It  may  seem  a  little  thing,  but  I  firmly  be- 
lieve that  many  a  child  would  be  saved  from 
his  initial  wrong  step  if  the  parent  would 
make  him  a  small  allowance.  In  the  cases 
where  such  a  course  is  pursued  the  child  usu- 
ally becomes  a  sort  of  a  little  business  man, 
husbanding  his  resources  and  willing  to 
spend  no  more  than  his  allowance ;  but  where 
the  child  has  nothing  it  is  not  strange  that 
he  should  fall  into  temptation."  The  state 
25 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

of  Colorado,  in  an  important  addition  to  the 
juvenile  law,  recognizes  the  existence  of  the 
wayward  parent  by  declaring  that  all  par- 
ents, guardians,  and  other  persons,  who  in 
any  manner  cause  or  contribute  to  the  de- 
linquency of  any  child,  shall  be  guilty  of  a 
misdemeanor.  Judge  Lindsey  of  the  Juve- 
nile Court  of  Denver  has  this  excoriation  for 
such  parents:  "Careless  and  incompetent 
parents  are  by  no  means  confined  to  the 
poor.  In  fact,  in  my  experience,  the  most 
blameworthy  of  such  parents  are  among  the 
so-called  business  men  and  prominent  citi- 
zens. They  seem  to  think  their  duty  is  end- 
ed when  they  have  debauched  the  boy  with 
luxury  and  the  free  use  of  money.  They 
permit  him  to  fill  his  life  with  a  round  of 
pleasure,  and  let  him  satiate  his  appetite 
without  knowing  what  he  is  doing  or 
whither  he  is  drifting.  They  are  too  busy 
to  become  his  chum  or  companion,  and  so 
26 


PARENTAL  RESPONSIBILITY 

he  soon  develops  a  secret  and  private  life, 
which  is  often  filled  with  corruption,  and 
because  of  his  standing  or  influence  and 
money  he  may  be  kept  out  of  the  courts  or 
the  jails,  but  nevertheless  is  eventually  add- 
ed to  society  as  a  more  dangerous  citizen 
than  many  men  who  have  been  subjected  to 
both.  A  financially  well-to-do  father  once 
said  to  me  that  he  was  too  busy  to  look  after 
his  boys,  to  be  companionable,  or  take  an  in- 
terest in  them.  We  have  no  more  dangerous 
citizens  than  such  men.  In  the  end,  I  be- 
lieve such  a  man  would  profit  more  by  less 
business  and  better  boys." 

Parental  laxness  in  the  enforcement  of 
discipline  may  be  due  to  indifference,  ob- 
tuseness,  or  a  false  sense  of  affection  which 
rebels  at  stern  correctional  measures. 
Whatever  may  be  the  motive  of  the  parent, 
the  effect  on  the  child  is  the  same.  Obedi- 
ence is  largely  a  matter  of  habit  which  be- 
27 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

comes  fixed,  as  do  other  habits,  by  contin- 
ued repetition.  Dr.  William  Byron  For- 
bush  stated  the  thought  in  this  language: 
"In  the  American  home,  especially  where 
there  is  not  sore  poverty,  the  cause  of  delin- 
quency in  children  is,  without  question,  the 
flabbiness  and  slovenliness  of  parents  in 
training  their  children  to  obedience  and  to 
orderly  habits." 

Too  often  the  training  of  the  boy  is 
shunted  back  and  forth  from  father  to 
mother  like  a  shuttlecock  which  is  finally 
knocked  out  of  bounds.  The  father  more 
frequently  than  the  mother  succeeds  in 
evading  the  obligation  and  thereafter  he 
rarely  attempts  to  interfere  unless  we  con- 
sider an  occasional  walloping  of  his  son  in 
anger  the  accomplishment  of  his  duty. 

The  average  parent  is  not  fully  equipped 
for  his  job.  He  is  either  unskilled  or  un- 
derskilled  in  boy-training.  He  needs  edu- 
28 


PARENTAL  RESPONSIBILITY 

cation,  insight,  and  understanding  to  cope 
with  the  problems  of  his  son.  If  the  parents 
default  in  the  training  of  the  boy — even 
through  ignorance — need  we  wonder  that 
the  boy  defaults  in  the  making  of  the  man? 
Numerous  boys  attain  the  average  perfec- 
tion of  manhood  in  spite  of  poor  training — 
but  none  of  them  because  of  it.  Many  a 
father,  because  his  son  has  turned  out  well, 
is  wearing  a  self-imposed  halo — when  he  is 
only  lucky. 


CHAPTER  III 

CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

A  SYSTEMATIC  knowledge  of  the 
powers  and  limitations  of  the  human 
mind  and  soul  before  maturity  and  the  char- 
acteristic changes  which  they  undergo  at 
puberty  will  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the 
boy-problem.  Juvenile  psychology  may  be 
divided  into  child  psychology,  covering  the 
period  from  birth  to  puberty,  and  adolescent 
psychology,  covering  the  period  from  pu- 
berty to  maturity.  Boyhood  is  the  interval 
between  birth  and  physical  maturity,  the 
latter  being  reached  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
four  or  twenty-five,  when  the  bones,  mus- 
cles, and  organs  of  the  body  have  attained 
their  complete  development.  Legal  ma- 
30 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

turity,  or  majority,  comes  at  the  end  of  the 
twenty-first  year,  when  the  disabilities  of  in- 
fancy are  removed  and  the  boy  is  presumed 
by  law  to  have  acquired  sufficient  intelli- 
gence, judgment,  and  moral  discernment  to 
take  his  place  in  the  community  as  a  citizen, 
and  is  then  vested  with  all  the  rights,  duties, 
and  obligations  of  an  adult,  even  though 
mental  maturity  (reckoned  at  the  time  the 
brain  cells  cease  to  grow  and  judgment  and 
reason  have  fully  ripened)  is  deferred  until 
he  is  approximately  fifty  years  of  age.  We 
may  roughly  divide  the  boy's  life  into  four 
periods  of  psychic  unfolding  in  accordance 
with  the  table  on  page  32. 

During  the  imaginative  period  covering 
infancy,  from  birth  to  eight  years,  the  child 
lives  in  a  land  of  air  castles,  daydreams  and 
mental  inventions,  interspersed  with  period- 
ic pangs  of  hunger  which  assail  him  at  in- 
tervals of  great  frequency.  His  world  is 
31 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 


PERIOD 

AGE 

CHARACTERISTICS 

IMAGINATIVE 

Birth  to  8 
Infancy 

Imaginative  faculty  is 
dominant;  acquisition  of 
locomotion,  speech  and  ele- 
mentary knowledge;  birth 
of  moral  concepts. 

INDIVIDUALISTIC 

8  to  12 

Early 
Boyhood 

Individualism;  selfish  pro- 
pensities; want  of  regard 
for  rights  of  others;  imita- 
tive faculty  is  ascendant. 

HEROIC 

1 

12  to  16 

Early 
Adolescence 

Hero-worship;  gang  affili- 
ations; puberty  and  early 
adolescence;  fundamental 
organic  changes;  sex-con- 
sciousness; age  of  experi- 
mentation; character- 
building  period;  psychic 
disturbances;  exceptional 
plasticity  of  mind;  high 
degree  of  emotionalism; 
susceptibility  to  religious 
influences;  development  of 
will  power. 

REFLECTIVE 

16  to  24 

Later 
Adolescence 

Thoughtful  mental 
attitude;  habit  of  intro- 
spection; evolution  of 
sociological  consciousness; 
development  of  altruism; 
growth  of  ethical  concepts; 
perfection  of  will  power. 

peopled  with  fairies,  gnomes,  nymphs,  dry- 
ads, goblins,  and  hobgoblins.  Elfin  images 
are  his  daily  playmates.  Imagination  runs 
riot  and  dominates  his  viewpoint.  It  is  the 
32 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

period  in  which  make-believe  is  as  real  as 
reality,  and  this  furnishes  the  explanation 
of  many  of  the  so-called  falsehoods  of  this 
age.  But  the  development  of  the  imagina- 
tion should  be  guarded,  not  suppressed. 
Through  imagination  we  visualize  the  fu- 
ture and  effect  world  progress.  All  the 
great  inventions  which  have  advanced  civ- 
ilization, the  political  reforms  which  have 
contributed  to  our  liberties  and  happiness, 
and  the  monumental  works  of  literature, 
music,  art,  and  science,  would  have  been  im- 
possible without  the  exercise  of  the  imagina- 
tive faculty. 

Imagination  is  not  only  of  great  value  in 
educating  the  intellect  and  morals,  but  it 
is  a  desirable  mental  attribute  which  pro- 
motes sympathy,  discloses  latent  possibili- 
ties of  things  and  situations,  and  broadens 
one's  appreciation  of  life.  It  is  needed  by 
the  laborer,  ditch-digger  and  sewer-cleaner 
33 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

as  well  as  by  the  musician,  artist,  and  author. 
In  this  period  the  child  learns  more  than 
in  all  his  subsequent  life.  He  learns  to  talk, 
to  walk,  to  feed  himself  and  to  play;  he 
learns  the  rudiments  of  written  and  printed 
language,  and  the  names  and  uses  of  the 
various  objects  he  sees  about  him;  he  com- 
prehends form,  color,  perspective,  and  har- 
mony; his  imagination,  so  useful  in  later 
life,  blossoms  forth;  his  moral  sense  buds 
and  the  capacity  to  distinguish  between 
right  and  wrong  unfolds ;  the  intense  desire 
to  learn  and  to  know  is  born — evidenced  by 
his  rapid-fire  and  continuous  questions;  he 
is  possessed  by  a  voracious  appetite  for 
knowledge  which  must  be  fed  by  a  harvest 
of  information;  and  the  habit  of  obedience 
and  the  recognition  of  parental  authority 
become  fixed.  His  horizon  is  bounded  by 
physical  growth  and  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge.  All  subsequent  knowledge  is 
34 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

either  a  variant  of  or  a  supplement  to 
the  basic  knowledge  acquired  during  in- 
fancy. 

The  ascendant  trait  of  the  imaginative 
period  is  the  faculty  of  make-believe.  It  is 
the  ability  of  the  mind  to  create  mental  im- 
ages of  objects  previously  perceived  by  the 
senses.  It  involves  the  power  to  reconstruct 
and  recombine  materials,  already  known, 
into  others  of  like  symbolic  purport.  It  is 
exhibited  when  Johnny  mounts  a  broom- 
stick, shouting,  "Get  up,  horsie!"  and 
"Whoa!"  The  imagination  builds  up  a 
mental  image  of  a  real  horse,  which  he  has 
seen,  out  of  the  stick-and-string  substitute. 
Through  fancy,  he  endows  the  counterfeit 
with  all  the  attributes  of  the  original  and  for 
the  time  being  the  broomstick  is  a  real,  liv- 
ing, bucking  horse.  Such  make-believe  is 
an  important  factor  in  the  development  and 
coordination  of  ideas  and  the  acquisition  of 
35 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

knowledge.  And  so  in  the  innumerable  in- 
stances of  make-believe  plays,  whether  he 
pretends  in  fancy  to  be  papa,  a  ravenous 
bear,  a  soldier,  a  policeman,  or  what  not,  he 
temporarily  lives  the  part  he  is  playing  and 
merges  his  personality  into  the  assumed 
character  with  an  abandon  which  should  ex- 
cite the  envy  of  an  actor. 

Witness  also  the  imagination  displayed 
by  Mary  when  she  builds  a  house  with  a  line 
of  chairs,  and  peoples  it  with  imaginary 
friends  with  whom  she  carries  on  extended 
conversations,  and  takes  the  several  parts 
in  the  dialogue  when  the  absence  of  play- 
mates renders  such  expedient  necessary. 
Impersonation  is  grounded  in  imagination. 
Every  little  girl  impersonates  her  mother, 
with  a  doll  as  her  make-believe  self,  and 
spends  many  hours  in  pretending  to  care  for 
its  physical  needs,  teaching  it  mentally,  and 
even  correcting  its  morals  with  some  form 
36 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  punishment  with  which  she  herself  is  ac- 
quainted, whether  corporal  or  otherwise. 

The  stolid,  dull  child  exhibits  less  of  fancy 
and  imagination  than  his  keen  bright  com- 
panion and  therefore  is  less  frequently  en- 
gaged in  the  numberless  activities  prompted 
by  imagination,  which  require  supervision. 
His  very  stolidity  keeps  him  out  of  many 
acts  termed  "mischief"  and  therefore  he  is 
more  easily  "managed"  in  the  sense  that  he 
does  not  require  such  continuous  oversight 
and  direction.  The  stolid  one  must  be  set 
going  by  being  told  how,  what,  and  when  to 
play,  while  the  imaginative  one,  without  aid, 
conjures  up  many  fanciful  dramas  in  which 
he  plays  the  leading  role  and  thus  occupies 
the  years  of  infancy.  These  figments  of  the 
brain  give  rise  to  stories  and  fanciful  tales 
which  are  called  "lies"  by  adults  whg^faiJrter^ 
understand  their  psychology.  /These  are  of 
sufficient  importance  to  warrant  their  dis- 
37 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

cussion  in  a  separate  chapter  of  this  volume. 

It  is  during  this  period  that  the  mother, 
with  her  Heaven-sent  gift  of  love,  sympa- 
thy, tenderness,  and  insight  into  the  soul  of 
childhood,  is  the  effective  teacher.  Coming 
home  one  evening,  I  found  a  neighbor's  son 
of  six  years  sitting  on  his  front  steps  await- 
ing his  mother's  return.  He  was  sobbing 
to  himself.  I  approached  him  and  inquired, 
"Well,  Robbie!  What's  the  matter?" 

He  replied,  through  a  mist  of  tears,  "I 
fell  down  and  bumped  my  head." 

"Does  it  hurt  you?"  I  continued,  in  my 
helpless  way,  unable  to  fathom  the  soul- 
depths  of  his  disaster.  "No,"  was  the  re- 
sponse, "it  don't  hurt,  but  I  want  muwer 
so  I  can  cry  in  her  arms,  an'  it  will  be 
well." 

He  needed  first  aid  to  his  feelings — not  to 
his  body — and  only  mother  with  her  infinite 
love,  sympathy,  and  understanding  could 
38 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

apply  it.  With  a  deep  consciousness  of  the 
limitations  of  his  sex,  the  author  withdrew  to 
await  the  balm  of  mother-love — that  unfail- 
ing remedy  for  the  physical  and  mental 
hurts  of  childhood. 

Blest  hour  of  childhood!  then,  and  then  alone, 
Dance  we  the  revels  close  round  pleasure's  throne, 
Quaff  the  bright  nectar  from  her  fountain-springs, 
And  laugh  beneath  the  rainbow  of  her  wings. 
Oh !  time  of  promise,  hope  and  innocence, 
Of  trust,  and  love,  and  happy  ignorance! 
Whose  every  dream  is  heaven,  in  whose  fair  joy, 
Experience  has  thrown  no  black  alloy. 

— THOUGHTS  OF  A  RECLUSE. 

At  the  age  of  eight  or  nine,  when  the  \ 
child  emerges  from  infancy  into  early  boy- 
hood, he  begins  gradually  and  imperfectly 
to  leave  behind  the  characteristics  of  child- 
hood and,  with  the  development  of  his  men- 
tal and  physical  processes,  he  acquires  the 
distinguishing  traits  of  the  individualistic 
period. 

39 


ic/ 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  char- 
acteristic changes  from  one  period  to  an- 
other are  not  abrupt  transitions,  but  easy 
gradations;  a  gradual  dropping  of  the  dis- 
tinctive features  of  the  period  left  behind  for 
the  essentials  of  the  period  just  attained. 
The  progression  is  by  easy,  continuous 
stages,  effected  unconsciously  and  unobtru- 
sively. This  growth  may  be  compared  to 
the  four  periods  of  the  development  of  a 
plant;  first,  the  bursting  of  the  seed  into 
life  and  the  tender  stalk  forcing  its  way  up- 
ward into  the  light — the  infantile  period ; 
then  the  formation  of  branches  and  leaves 
and  the  growth  of  stalk — the  early  boyhood 
period;  then  the  putting  forth  of  the  bud 
which  is  the  precursor  of  the  flower,  and  the 
formation  and  development  of  petals,  sta- 
men, pistils,  and  pollen — the  adolescent  pe- 
;*  )d;  and  finally  the  blossoming  forth  of  the 
11-blown  flower,  the  fertilization  of  the  pis- 
40 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

til  by  the  pollen  of  the  anther,  the  whole 
marvelous  process  of  reproduction  culmi- 
nating in  the  formation  of  the  embryonic 
plant  contained  in  the  seed — the  period  of 
maturity.  All  of  these  stages  are  charac- 
terized by  an  evolution  which  is  as  gradual  / 
as  it  is  silent.  / 

In  like  manner  it  should  be  understood 
that  the  ages  delimiting  the  four  periods  of 
boyhood  are  somewhat  arbitrary  and  are 
subject  to  the  controlling  factors  of  race, 
climate,  health,  and  individual  temperament. 
The  Latin  races  mature  earlier  than  the  An- 
glo-Saxon; the  boy  in  the  tropics  reaches 
puberty  more  quickly  than  one  in  a  colder 
zone;  certain  abnormalities  of  physical  con- 
dition, as  well  as  environment  and  heredity, 
conduce  to  early  maturity;  and  tempera- 
mental characteristics  contribute,  in  some 
degree,  to  a  difference  in  the  time  required 
to  traverse  the  various  periods  of  boyhood. 
41 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

I  have  known  boys  of  ten  who  were  still  in- 
fants, and  I  have  in  mind  a  boy  friend  of 
sixteen  years,  with  the  normal  mental  devel- 
opment of  one  of  that  age,  in  whom  ado- 
lescence has  not  begun.  Physically  and 
psychologically  he  is  eleven  years  old, 
although  chronologically  he  is  sixteen.  He 
is,  therefore,  in  the  individualistic  period 
of  his  existence  and,  in  a  large  degree,  he 
should  be  judged,  governed,  and  trained  by 
the  rules  applicable  to  that  period.  In  so 
far  as  his  moral  concepts  are  influenced  by 
mentality,  his  responsibility  for  deflection  is 
that  of  one  of  his  chronological  age ;  but  in 
that  class  of  cases  in  which  his  moral  view- 
point is  controlled  by  his  undeveloped 
physical  or  psychic  state,  his  responsibility 
belongs  to  the  individualistic  period  to 
which  these  qualities  are  attributable. 

The  individualistic  period  between  eight 
and  twelve  is  the  era  in  which  the  boy  re- 
42 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

gards  himself  as  an  individual  not  corelated 
to  other  individuals  of  society.  He  is  essen- 
tially selfish,  and  individualism  is  his  domi- 
nant characteristic.  He  has  an  excessive 
and  exclusive  regard  for  his  personal  inter- 
ests. The  great  world  of  men  forming  so- 
ciety is  beyond  his  perceptions.  His 
thoughts  chiefly  concern 'himself  and  seldom 
embrace  others,  except  when  they  cause  him 
pleasure,  annoyance,  or  pain.  He  recog- 
nizes them  only  as  they  contribute  to  his 
emotions.  This  tendency  manifests  itself  in 
•the  selfishness  exhibited  in  play  and  his  un- 
willingness to  perform  the  trifling  services 
required  of  him  by  his  elders,  if  they  in  any 
way  interfere  with  his  present  enjoyment. 
Sociological  consciousness,  with  its  recogni- 
tion of  the  duties  and  obligations  of  the  in- 
dividual toward  the  mass  of  individuals 
termed  society,  is  still  dormant.  Its  first 
awakening  is  seen  in  his  recognition  of  duty 
43 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

toward  his  family,  and  later  toward  his  play- 
mates and  friends,  and  last  of  all  toward 
society — which  is  reached  in  the  reflective 
period.  His  mental  horizon  is  bounded  en- 
tirely by  his  own  activities  and  interests  in 
which  he  is  the  central  figure. 

Carelessness,  forgetfulness,  and  thought- 
lessness of  others  are  incidents  common  to 
childhood  which  gradually  wane  and  disap- 
pear at  the  age  when  he  enters  the  reflective 
period.  As  he  lives  in  the  immediate  pres- 
ent, he  does  not  plan  for  the  future — not 
even  for  the  morrow.  (Johnny  comes  home 
tosupper  from  the  playground,  whirling 
through  the  house  with  cyclonic  energy  and 
leaving  a  trail  of  gloves,  hat,  overcoat,  and 
superfluous  garments  in  his  wake,  intent  on 
the  only  thing  which  is  of  absorbing  interest 
to  him  at  that  moment — his  immediate  pres- 
ence at  table  to  alleviate  the  excruciating 
pangs  of  hunger  which  are  gnawing  at  his 
44 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

vitals.  Everything  else  is  forgotten  in  his 
efforts  to  satisfy  the  desires  of  the  present. 
The  next  morning,  when  preparations  for 
school  are  begun,  all  remembrance  of  the 
places  where  his  wearing  apparel  was  depos- 
ited is  forgotten.  Then  ensues  the  daily 
hunt  for  the  missing  garments,  interspersed 
with  vociferous  requests  to  all  members  of 
the  household  for  assistance.  The  interrog- 
atory, "Where's  my  hat?"  is  as  common  as 
oatmeal  for  breakfast.  Order  and  system 
have  little  place  in  a  routine  which  is  regu- 
lated by  present  necessity. 

A  strong  sense  of  proprietorship  in  per- 
sonal possessions  is  now  manifest,  and  is 
closely  allied  to  the  acquisitive  faculty. 
About  the  ninth  year  he  begins  to  make  col- 
lections of  various  sorts  of  junk.  This  is 
the  beginning  of  the  collection  craze  which 
lasts  throughout  the  individualistic  period. 
Its  initial  manifestation  is  usually  the  col- 
45 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

lection  of  foreign  and  domestic  postage 
stamps,  which  lasts  from  three  to  five  years 
and  furnishes  one  of  the  best  methods  for 
elementary  scientific  training.  The  term 
science  implies  knowledge  systematized  and 
reduced  to  an  orderly  and  logical  arrange- 
ment, with  classification  as  its  basis.  Such 
collections  teach  him  to  group  and  classify 
their  component  parts  according  to  some 
definite  plan.  The  intellectual  training  af- 
forded by  the  grouping  and  classifying  nec- 
essary to  preserve  his  collection  possesses 
educational  value  of  the  highest  quality. 
Geography  now  has  a  new  and  personal 
meaning  as  "the  places  where  his  stamps 
came  from."  Other  phases  of  this  tendency 
may  be  seen  in  collections  of  marbles,  agates, 
tops,  buttons,  bird  eggs,  leaves,  minerals, 
monograms,  crest  impressions,  cigarette  pic- 
tures, and  cigar  bands. 

One  boy  proved  his  industry  and  trend 
46 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

toward  personal  acquisition  by  collecting 
and  classifying  several  hundred  tin  cans 
which  were  formerly  receptacles  for  fruit, 
beans,  and  meats,  and  the  odors  emanating 
from  the  mass  in  no  wise  diminished  his 
pride  in  the  collection,  which  he  regarded  in 
the  same  light  as  the  connoisseur  views  his 
art  treasures. 

A  wise  provision  of  nature  has  made  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge  pleasant  and 
agreeable.  It  prompts  the  boy  to  fire  con- 
tinuous volleys  of  questions  and  has  caused 
him  to  be  described  as  the  human  interroga- 
tion mark.  He  looks  on  every  adult  as  a 
wellspring  of  knowledge  whose  stream  of 
information  can  be  started  flowing  by  tap- 
ping it  with  a  question.  The  knowledge  re- 
ceived and  digested  from  the  answers  to  his 
questions  supplies  him  with  food  by  which 
he  grows  intellectually.  This  inquisitiveness 
exhibits  itself,  before  puberty,  in  frank, 
47 


[YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 
\ 

naive  questions — even  of  the  most  personal 

nature.  On  one  occasion  the  author  ap- 
peared in  evening  dress  at  a  meeting  of  his 
[troop  of  Boy  Scouts  preparatory  to  a  later 
attendance  upon  a  social  function.  He  was 
immediately  surrounded  by  that  part  of  the 
troop  of  preadolescent  age  who  subjected 
his  wearing  apparel  to  minute  examination, 
during  which  they  felt  the  cloth,  inquired  its 
cost,  and  commented  freely,  frankly,  and 
unreservedly  on  matters  pertaining  to  ma- 
terial, cut,  style,  price,  and  workmanship, 
with  never  a  thought  of  giving  offense. 
While  one  who  is  the  object  of  such  atten- 
tion would  ordinarily  feel  a  degree  of  em- 
barrassment at  such  familiarity,  the  author 
recognized  it  as  a  manifestation  of  the  curi- 
osity inherent  in  the  preadolescent  age,  as 
well  as  evidence  of  a  complete  confidence 
and  rapport  which  could  be  possible  only 
toward  one  with  whom  they  were  on  terms 
48 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  sympathetic  and  understandable  compan- 
ionship. 

The  sages  say.  Dame  Truth  delights  to  dwell, 
Strange  mansion !  in  the  bottom  of  a  well. 
Questions   are,   then,   the  windlass   and  the  rope 
That  pull  the  grave  old  gentlewoman  up. 

— Dr.  Walcot's  PETER  PINDAR. 

During  this  age  the  imitative  faculty  is 
born,  reaches  its  development,  and  is  car- 
ried over  into  the  heroic  period.  He  fol- 
lows companions  in  the  kind  of  games  and 
the  seasons  when  they  are  played.  If  a 
playmate  is  the  possessor  of  a  sled,  a  bicycle, 
or  a  pair  of  skates,  he  must  needs  have  their 
duplicates.  He  begins  to  follow  closely  the 
opinions,  pastimes,  games,  and  even  the 
style  of  dress  affected  by  others  of  his  own 
class.  If  it  is  the  fashion  of  his  set,  he  will, 
with  a  persistency  worthy  of  a  better  cause, 
wear  the  brim  of  his  hat  turned  down  and 
decorated  with  a  multicolored  hat  band.  / 
49 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

He  revels  in  a  riot  of  color  because  aesthetics 
is  an  unexplored  and  unsuspected  world. 
His  proximity  to  the  savage  state  is  reflect- 
ed in  his  love  of  the  garish  colors  which  are 
affected  by  savage  peoples. 

His  faculty  for  imitation  renders  him 
highly  susceptible  to  the  influences  of  his 
environment.  He  imitates  what  he  sees  and 
hears.  Therefore  the  influence  of  compan- 
ions for  good  or  evil,  as  well  as  the  persua- 
sive control  of  his  parents  by  example,  is 
potent.  To  a  somewhat  lesser  degree  is  he 
affected  by  the  class  of  literature  which  he 
reads.  In  the  absence  of  stories  suited  to 
sychological  needs,  he  acquires  a  taste 
for  the  dime  novel,  nickel  library,  and  other 
blood-and-thunder  stories,  the  reading  of 
which,  if  continued  through  the  heroic  pe- 
riod, frequently  results  in  truancy  and  leav- 
ing home  to  "see  the  world." 

Concurrent  with  all  the  psychic  develop- 
50 


CHILD  PSYCHOLOGY 

ment  of  this  period  he  shows  himself  to  be 
a  human  dynamo  of  physical  energy  which 
manifests  itself  in  ceaseless  action.  This  pe- 
riod of  motor  activity  should  find  its  outlet, 
as  well  as  its  control,  in  play,  athletics,  and 
manual  training.  He  is  a  bundle  of  twist, 
squirm,  and  wiggle  which  only  time  can  con- 
vert into  useful  and  productive  activity. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

THE  period  of  adolescence  is  truly  one 
of  storm  and  stress,  caused  by  the 
wrecking  of  boy-nature  to  rebuild  it  into 
man-nature;  it  is  a  cataclysmic  bursting  of 
the  bonds  of  infancy  in  preparation  for  the 
larger  stature  of  manhood.  In  early  ado- 
lescence the  boy  is  neither  child  nor  man. 
He  is  in  the  chrysalis  stage  of  metamorpho- 
sis, which  is  shedding  the  characteristics  of 
childhood  and  putting  on  the  maturity  of 
the  adult.  Neither  one  nor  the  other,  he  is 
a  part  of  both.  Adolescence  covers  the  pe- 
riod of  the  boy's  life  between  puberty  and 
maturity.  Puberty  is  the  earliest  age  at 
which  the  individual  is  capable  of  reproduc- 
52 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

ing  the  species  and  it  usually  begins  at  the 
age  of  thirteen  or  fourteen,  subject  to  the 
influence  of  the  factors  stated  in  the  preced- 
ing chapter.  The  growth  and  development 
of  the  sex  organs  during  adolescence  pro- 
duce changes  which  are  revolutionary  rather 
than  evolutionary  in  their  nature.  Marked 
physical  alterations  are  always  attended 
by  still  more  marked  psychic  disturb- 
ances. 

The  physical  indicia  of  puberty  are  the 
lengthening  of  the  vocal  cords,  which  causes 
the  voice  to  change  from  the  treble  of  boy- 
hood to  the  base  of  manhood  and  manifests 
itself  in  sudden  and  uncontrollable  breaks 
in  the  voice  in  speaking  and  singing;  the 
growth  of  the  organs  of  reproduction  and 
the  filling  of  the  seminal  glands ;  the  growth 
of  hair  on  the  pubes  and  face ;  the  coarsening 
of  the  skin;  broadening  of  the  shoulders, 
deepening  of  the  chest,  and  general  change 
53 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

from  the  slenderness  of  childhood  to  the 
compactness  of  maturity. 

This  is  the  period  of  rapid  physical 
growth  wherein  he  shoots  upwards  like  a 
cornstalk  under  the  impulse  of  a  July  sun. 
Elongated  arms  and  legs  are  now  as  con- 
spicuous as  they  are  unwieldy,  and  efforts  to 
discipline  them  are  futile.  The  demand  for 
"long  pants,"  heretofore  quiescent  or  erupt- 
ing intermittently,  now  becomes  insistent 
and  finally  bursts  forth  with  a  fury  pro- 
duced by  accumulated  repression  and  forti- 
fied by  the  assertion  that  "Johnny  Jones 
wears  'em  and  I'm  bigger'n  him" — the  last 
word  in  argumentative  collusiveness. 
Physical  awkwardness  and  ungainliness,  il- 
lustrated in  his  inability  to  manage  his  hands 
and  feet  easily  or  gracefully,  is  due  both  to 
the  extraordinary  and  rapid  growth  of  the 
body  and  nervous  system  which  takes  place 
at  this  time,  and  to  his  instability  of  mind, 
54 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

wholly  apart  from  his  knowledge  of  social 
usages. 

The  psychic  disturbances  produced  by  ad- 
olescence are  still  more  pronounced.  The 
adolescent  is  in  the  throes  of  discarding  the 
mental  concepts  of  the  child  and  adopting 
those  of  the  adult.  His  viewpoint  is  lifted 
until  his  mental  and  moral  horizon  broadens 
to  distances  heretofore  undreamed  of  and 
discloses  new  and  strange  moral  and  ethical 
problems.  Old  concepts  melt  away  in  the 
light  of  a  newer  and  stronger  vision.  Sex 
consciousness  overwhelms  him  with  its  com- 
plexity and  unrecognized  import.  The 
mental  concepts  of  maturity  clash  with  those 
of  childhood.  His  barque  is  sailing  on  un- 
charted waters,  without  compass  or  rudder, 
while  a  fierce  storm  of  uncertainty  and  in-! 
stability  beats  about  him  as  he  experiences 
the  travail  of  the  birth  of  a  new  soul.  It  is 
truly  the  age  "when  a  feller  needs  a  friend 
55 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

— one  who  can  pilot  him  safely  through  the 
storm  of  adolescence  to  the  calm  of  man- 
hood. 

Truancy  reaches  its  flood  tide  during  ado- 
lescence. The  instinct  of  wanderlust  ap- 
pears in  response  to  the  promptings  of  his 
savage  nature,  his  unease  of  mind,  and  his 
desire  to  know  the  unknown  in  the  world 
about  him,  and  culminates  in  runaways  as  a 
revolt  against  the  exercise  of  parental  au- 
thority which  he  believes  to  be  unnecessarily 
restrictive  or  severe.  He  is  now  in  the 
formative,  fermenting  period  when  he  is 
reaching  out  to  find  himself,  with  indifferent 
success. 

There  is  at  this  time  a  noticeable  want  of 
continuity  of  purpose  or  action.  He  jumps 
from  one  interest  to  another,  evincing  little 
stability  of  mind.  There  is  want  of  psycho- 
physical  coordination.  The  transmission 
between  mind  and  body  is  faulty;  and 

56 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  imperfect  gear  of  intellect  and  will 
frequently  fails  to  engage  the  cogwheels 
of  morals.  The  machine  works  poorly 
because  it  is  neither  complete  nor  fully 
equipped.  Workmen  are  still  engaged  on 
the  unfinished  job. 

William  now  evinces  a  disposition  to 
find  fault  with  his  home,  his  clothing,  his 
food,  and  restrictions  on  his  conduct  and 
routine.  He  betrays  a  mental  uneasiness 
unknown  to  prepubertal  days,  and  a  will- 
ingness to  argue  with  his  parents  in  a  self- 
assertive  or  combative  mood  quite  unlike  his 
former  self.  Incongruities  of  character  are 
shown  in  petulance,  irritability,  disobedi- 
ence, stubbornness,  and  rebellion,  sometimes 
even  taking  the  form  of  cruelty  to  persons 
or  animals.  This  latter  manifestation  has 
been  ascribed  to  atavism  which  manifests  it- 
self in  the  recurrence  of  the  savage  traits  of 
his  primeval  ancestors.  Dr.  G.  Stanley 
57 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

Hall  thus  comments  on  this  tendency  in  his 
exhaustive  work  on  adolescence:  "Assum- 
ing the  bionomic  law,  infant  growth  means 
being  loaded  with  paleoatavistic  qualities  in 
a  manner  more  conformable  to  Weismann- 
ism,  embryonic  growth  being  yet  purer, 
while  the  pubescent  increment  is  relatively 
neoatavistic." 

His  proximity  to  the  savage  state  is 
shown  in  his  appreciation  of  primitive  hu- 
mor. The  unexpected  which  causes  discom- 
fiture or  pain  is  excruciatingly  ludicrous.  It 
is  the  crude,  slap-stick  comedy  which  excites 
his  disposition  to  risibility.  The  knockabout 
comedian  who  falls  down  stairs  or  beats  his 
partner  over  the  head  with  an  inflated  blad- 
der produces  the  same  degree  of  laughter  in 
a  boy  as  the  felling  of  one  savage  by  another 
with  a  war  club  produces  in  the  onlooking 
members  of  their  tribe.  The  rapier  wit  of 
keen  intellectuality  and  the  subtle  humor  of 
58 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

fine  distinctions  observed  in  a  play  on  words 
all  pass  over  his  unscathed  head. 

He  is  a  living  paradox  who  displays  at 
times  the  gallantry,  courtesy  and  chivalry 
of  the  knight-errant  with  the  thoughtless- 
ness, rudeness,  and  boisterousness  of  the 
harum-scarum  rowdy. 

Sex-consciousness  now  asserts  itself  in  an 
increased  but  diffident  interest  in  the  oppo- 
site sex,  accompanied  by  blushes,  embarrass- 
ment, and  self-consciousness  when  in  their 
presence.  The  desire  to  appear  attractive 
in  the  eyes  of  his  girl  friends  prompts  mi- 
nute and  painstaking  attention  to  dress,  and 
the  brilliant  plumage  of  the  male  bird  is  re- 
flected in  the  bright  colors  of  his  attire.  For- 
merly he  regarded  girl  playmates  from  the 
same  viewpoint  from  which  he  regarded 
boys  and  they  were  placed  on  the  same  plane 
and  received  the  same  consideration  as  that 
accorded  to  those  of  his  own  sex,  except 
59 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

where  the  teaching  of  the  sex-conscious  par- 
ent required  him  to  display  a  gentleness 
toward  them  which  his  own  lack  of  sex-con- 
sciousness failed  to  prompt.  Now,  gentle- 
ness, courtesy,  and  gallantry  are  inspired  by 
adolescence  from  within.  The  companion- 
ship of  the  adolescent  with  pure,  high-mind- 
ed girls  of  his  own  age  is  beneficial  to  both 
in  the  greatest  degree.  Such  associations 
are  of  educational  value  in  that  they  project 
high  ideals  of  the  feminine  traits  of  gentle- 
ness, sweetness,  and  purity  whose  influence 
is  reflected  in  his  improved  manners,  dress, 
and  conduct.  It  fosters  the  idealistic  and 
spiritual  phase  of  love  and  removes  it  from 
the  coarseness  and  baseness  engendered  by 
the  purely  sexual  appeal.  These  love  affairs 
are  numerous  but  transitory — their  duration 
being  dependent  upon  the  time  required  to 
satisfy  his  idealism;  and  at  the  first  sugges- 
tion that  his  idol  has  feet  of  clay  his  affec- 
60 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

tion  is  transferred  to  another  pretty  face  and 
sweet  nature.  Not  infrequently  he  bestows 
his  affection  upon  a  girl  several  years  older 
than  himself,  to  which  he  is  actuated  by  two 
impulses — the  half-formed  sex-impulse  of 
the  man  to  seek  a  mate,  and  his  adolescent 
need  of  "mothering,"  both  of  which  are 
measurably  gratified  by  the  reciprocal  love 
of  an  older  girl. 

He  begins  his  love-making  slyly  and 
shamefacedly.  George  waits  after  school, 
occupied  with  an  ostensible  engagement 
which  will  consume  the  time  until  Mary  shall 
appear.  His  meeting  with  her,  after  all 
these  elaborate  plans,  appears  to  be  quite 
unexpected.  A  diffident  greeting  is  fol- 
lowed by  an  inquiry  as  to  whether  she  is  go- 
ing home.  Her  affirmative  answer  is  seized 
upon  as  his  excuse  for  walking  in  her  di- 
rection. Then  follows  his  request  to  be  per- 
mitted to  carry  her  books.  They  discuss 

61 


YOUR  BQY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

matters  of  mutual  interest  in  school  or  social 
life,  while  he,  with  furtive  glances,  notes  the 
beauty  of  her  face,  the  wealth  of  her  hair, 
and  the  velvet  of  her  cheek.  Sunlight  is 
playing  hide-and-seek  in  her  eyes,  while  the 
roses  in  her  cheeks  blush  a  deeper  red, 
matching  the  ribbon  which  adorns  her  pig- 
tails as  she  feels  the  flood  of  his  unexpressed 
admiration  surging  over  her.  Never  was 
there  such  a  wondrous  being  in  all  the  world ! 
He  idealizes  her  every  attribute  until  she 
surmounts  a  pedestal  far  removed  from 
things  earthy.  A  smile  of  approval  from 
this  young  goddess  is  treasured  in  his  heart 
of  hearts,  sacred  from  the  misunderstand- 
ings of  a  profane  world.  He  is  assailed  by 
daydreams  of  knight-errantry  in  which  he 
is  performing  some  chivalrous  act  of  hero- 
ism to  which  the  maiden  shall  be  a  witness. 
Or  better  still,  he  imagines  himself  playing 
the  part  of  a  cavalier  rescuing  her  own  sweet 
62 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

self  from  distress  or  danger  and  then  re- 
ceiving as  his  reward  her  avowal  of  affec- 
tion, while  he  protests  that  his  heroism  is 
nothing  and  that  he  would  do  a  thousand 
times  more  for  her. 

Evidences  of  his  tender  regard  for  the 
girl  of  his  choice  are  given  in  secret,  as  too 
holy  for  an  unappreciative  world  to  compre- 
hend, and  the  twittings  of  his  elders  on  the 
subject  of  puppy  love  (cruel  in  their  un- 
sound psychology)  are  met  with  prompt 
and  positive  denials.  Such  manifestations 
of  incipient  aff ection  should  be  recognized 
as  the  intermediary  elaboration  of  a  high 
and  spiritual  love  whose  ultimate  fruition 
will  be  matrimony.  All  the  world  loves  a 
lover — provided  he  is  not  a  boy.  The  adult 
who  cannot  see  the  psychology  in  such  inci- 
dents must  be  blind  indeed. 

The  exceptional  plasticity  of  mind  char-  \ 

acteristic  of  this  age  renders  him  highly  sus-y 

63 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

ceptible  to  influences  for  good  or  evil.  It 
is  the  great  character-building  period  of  his 
life  in  which  are  crystallized  his  moral  and 
ethical  concepts  which  attain  their  latter  per- 
fection in  the  succeeding  period.  Your  boy 
is  putty  in  your  hands.  He  is  a  superlative 
impressionist.  His  impressionistic  mind  is 
molded  as  deeply  by  evil  as  by  good.  For 
this  reason,  it  is  necessary  that  his  environ- 
ment— which  is  the  cumulative  influence  of 
the  precept,  example,  and  conditions  which 
surround  him — should  be  good  and  whole- 
some. As  the  drip-drip-drip  of  water  wears 
away  the  stone,  so  the  constant  drip  of  en- 
vironing influences  wears  its  way  into  char- 
>  acter. 

The  foundations  of  will-power  are  now 
laid  in  his  efforts  to  propel  himself  into  a 
choice  between  the  good  and  the  bad,  be- 
tween right  and  wrong.  Judgment  and  dis- 
cretion appear  in  embryonic  form  and 
64 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

slowly  and  laboriously  develop  into  cautious 
discernment  and  the  faculty  of  deciding 
justly  and  wisely,  which  reach  their  ap- 
proximate maturity  late  in  the  reflective 
period. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  note  that  the  law 
presumes  that  every  person  at  the  age  of 
fourteen  has  common  discretion  and  under- 
standing, until  the  contrary  is  made  out; 
but  under  that  age  there  is  no  such  pre- 
sumption. It  therefore  follows  that  when  a 
child  under  fourteen  years  of  age  is  offered 
as  a  witness  in  a  court  of  law,  a  preliminary 
examination  conducted  by  the  judge  must 
be  made  to  ascertain  whether  he  has  suffi- 
cient intelligence  to  relate  the  facts  as  they 
occurred  and  sufficient  moral  sense  to  com- 
prehend the  nature  and  obligation  of  an 
oath.  But  the  law  is  conservative  in  its  pre- 
sumption, as  such  intelligence  and  moral 
comprehension  are,  in  most  instances,  de- 
65 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

veloped  in  the  child  at  a  much  earlier  age 
and  numerous  cases  are  cited  in  the  law  re- 
ports in  which  children  as  young  as  seven  or 
eight  have  qualified,  after  examination,  as 
witnesses  competent  to  testify. 

During  this  period  occur  three  cycles  of 
particular  susceptibility  to  religious  influ- 
ence. The  first  appears  about  the  age  of 
twelve  under  the  stimulus  of  witnessing  the 
conversion  or  affiliation  with  the  church  of 
some  adult  whom  he  looks  up  to,  and  is 
chiefly  due  to  the  faculty  of  imitation — one 
of  the  characteristics  carried  over  from  the 
individualistic  period;  the  next  occurs  at 
age  of  fourteen,  when  his  emotionalism  is 
dominant,  under  the  excitement  of  a  pow- 
erful emotional  experience;  the  third  cycle 
of  religious  conversion  appears  at  sixteen 
when  he  is  leaving  the  heroic  period  and  en- 
tering the  thoughtful  or  reflective  stage  of 
his  adolescence  and  such  a  conversion  is 
66 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

grounded  in  the  thoughtful  promptings  of 
the  intellect,  rather  than  the  emotions. 

This  is  also  the  age  of  experimentation  in 
which  his  longing  to  know  the  unknown 
leads  him  to  make  short  excursions  into  the 
fields  of  mechanics,  physics,  electricity,  hy- 
draulics, magic,  and  others  which  hide  their 
secrets  from  the  casual  observer.  This  trend 
of  his  activities  may  be  directed  by  sugges- 
tion, supplemented  with  the  necessary  equip- 
ment, toward  manual  training  and  handi- 
craft— ideal  employments  for  the  early 
adolescent. 

This  is  the  age  of  hero-worship  and  every 
boy  in  this  period,  without  exception,  has  a 
personal  hero.  He  may  not  take  the  world 
into  his  confidence  by  divulging  his  secret, 
but  whether  admitted  or  not,  he  possesses 
a  hero  whom  he  looks  up  to,  admires,  and 
copies.  I  know  a  thirteen-year-old  lad 
whose  hero  is  his  eighteen-year-old  cousin 
67 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

for  whom  his  admiration  manifests  itself 
to  the  extent  of  trying  to  imitate  his  tone 
of  voice,  his  walk,  his  gestures,  and  personal 
appearance,  including  the  wearing  of  the 
same  kind  of  ties  which  his  cousin  affects. 
He  never  ceases  praising  the  football  prow- 
ess of  his  relative  and  continually  quotes 
him  as  an  authority  on  athletics. 

The  boy  of  this  age  worships  a  physical 
hero.  Power,  strength,  and  authority  make 
a  powerful  appeal.  His  hero  may  be  the 
policeman  on  his  beat  who  is  the  emblem  of 
physical  strength  and  vested  with  the  au- 
thority of  law  to  make  arrests;  the  fireman 
who  displays  wonderful  courage  in  the  res- 
cue of  imperiled  persons  from  burning 
buildings ;  the  engineer  who  guides  the  loco- 
motive dashing  like  a  meteor  through  the 
blackness  of  night;  the  prize  fighter  who 
has  won  a  championship  in  the  squared  ring; 
or  the  baseball  or  football  athlete  whose 
68 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

name  is  on  every  tongue.  His  hero  must 
be  a  mighty  man  of  action,  for  he  worships 
at  the  shrine  of  athletic  prowess.  To  test 
the  truth  of  this  statement,  ask  any  boy  you 
may  meet,  between  the  ages  of  twelve  and 
sixteen,  whether  he  would  rather  be  the  win- 
ner of  the  Nobel  prize  for  scientific  achieve- 
ment or  Ty  Cobb  (with  a  batting  average 
of  approximately  .370),  and  the  unanimous 
verdict  will  be  in  favor  of  the  ballplayer. 
So  strongly  is  hero  worship  implanted  in 
his  nature  and  so  completely  does  it  domi- 
nate his  viewpoint  that  it  remains,  with  grad- 
ually diminishing  intensity,  for  many  years 
thereafter.  Happy  the  boy  whose  father 
is  his  hero  and  happy  the  father  who  is  a 

hero  to  his  son! 

«%•—* 
The  objective  of  hero-worship  is  always 

an  older  male — never  a  female.    No  instance 

of  normal  heroine-worship   has  ever  been 

noted.      The  wealth  of  love  which  he  may 

69 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

manifest  toward  his  mother,  female  friend 
or  teacher  is  entirely  disassociated  from 
hero-worship.  It  lacks  the  sex-element  nec- 
essary to  inspire  emulation.  He  wants  to 
be  a  man — not  a  woman.  For  this  reason, 
it  is  desirable  that  he  should  have  oppor- 
tunity for  association,  during  adolescence, 
with  men  of  strong  character  and  person- 
ality. The  differences  between  the  psycho- 
logic processes  of  the  male  and  the  female 
adult  are  too  well  known  to  require  discus- 
sion here.  Widows  who  keenly  appreciate 
the  absence  of  the  father's  guiding  hand 
frequently  attempt  to  be  both  father  and 
mother  to  their  sons,  and  in  so  doing  the 
apron  strings  are  knotted  doubly  hard  and 
fast.  Then  ensues  a  conflict  between  the 
feminine  and  maternal  policy  and  the  ado- 
lescent longing  and  reaching  out  for  ulti- 
mate masculinity.  The  mother  is  the  last 
person  to  recognize  adolescence  in  her  son; 
70 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

she  wants  him  to  remain  the  infant  she  has 
always  regarded  him.  His  beginnings  to 
emulate  masculinity  clash  with  her  desire 
to  keep  him  a  child.  I  have  in  mind  a 
mother  who  is  rearing  the  most  lady-like 
boy  in  my  acquaintance.  Her  inherent  del- 
icacy and  refinement  of  nature  prompt  her 
to  develop  these  same  qualities  in  her  son 
as  the  ultimate  end  to  be  attained.  With 
no  qualifications  for  boy-training  except 
mother-love,  feminine  ideals,  and  an  ambi- 
tion to  rear  her  son  to  beautiful  manhood, 
she  refuses  him  participation  in  rough  and 
tumble  sports  and  games  because  they  are 
"rude  and  ungentlemanly"  and  besides,  they 
would  soil  his  clothes.  Many  mothers  of 
the  neighborhood  hold  him  up  to  their  own 
unregenerate  offspring  as  a  model  of  neat- 
ness and  a  paragon  of  propriety,  but  the 
boys  call  him  "Sissy."  The  author  has  wit- 
nessed many  examples  of  apron-string  pol- 
71 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

icy  whose  unpsychological  and  repressive 
tendencies  cannot  fail  to  be  detrimental  to 
the  ideal  development  of  adolescence. 

Gratitude  is  a  virtue  displayed  by  few 
boys  prior  to  the  reflective  period,  because 
they  fail  to  appreciate  the  motives  which  in- 
spire the  act  which  should  call  forth  expres- 
sions of  gratitude,  especially  if  the  act  or 
service  is  of  an  altruistic  nature.  Of  course, 
he  will  thank  you  for  a  gift  of  candy  or  a 
toy;  but  never  for  the  time  and  thought  ex- 
pended in  giving  him  instruction  or  moral 
training,  or  taking  him  in  the  woods  for  a 
day,  or  pointing  out  to  him  the  constella- 
tions at  night.  He  is  not  ungrateful.  He 
merely  accepts  these  things  as  a  matter  of 
course  until  he  reaches  the  age  which  recog- 
nizes and  appreciates  the  sacrifices  incurred 
by  the  giver  of  altruistic  service. 
T  The  beginning  of  the  reflective  period 
/  witnesses  the  subsidence  of  the  fierce  storms 
\  72 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  earlier  adolescence  and  is  followed  by  com- 
parative physical  and  emotional  calm,  al- 
though attended  by  intellectual  agitations 
of  lesser  import.  The  boy  now  enters  an 
era  of  mental  development  characterized  by 
a  thoughtful,  reflective  attitude  toward  the 
great  problems  of  life.  A  serious  viewpoint 
is  developed  which  changes  the  previous 
aspect  of  the  world.  He  devotes  much 
thought  to  his  life-work;  to  making  choice 
of  an  occupation  or  profession  and  prepar- 
ing for  it.  His  future  career  looms  large 
in  the  foreground  of  his  problems,  and 
prompts  a  close  analysis  of  his  inclinations, 
aptitudes,  and  qualifications  for  special  lines 
of  work.  The  realization  that  he  must  soon 
take  his  place  among  the  men  who  are  do- 
ing the  world's  work  overwhelms  him,  at 
times,  with  the  immensity  of  his  job.  Intro- 
spection, as  a  part  of  his  self -analysis,  be- 
comes a  habit  which  induces  him  to  make 
73 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

continual  comparisons  between  his  own  nat- 
ural endowments  and  those  of  others  of  his 
own  age.  He  seeks,  with  all  the  faculties 
at  his  command,  to  find  that  niche  in  the 
business,  professional,  or  industrial  world 
which  he  can  best  fill  and  it  is  at  this  time 
that  he  needs  the  vocational  guidance  of 
his  father. 

Early  in  this  period  a  morbid  self-con- 
sciousness frequently  appears  as  the  result 
of  a  too  minute  introspection  with  eyes 
whose  views  of  life  are  not  correlated.  He 
discovers  defects  in  his  personal  appearance, 
faults  of  character  and  deficiencies  of  in- 
tellect which  are  magnified  out  of  their  true 
proportions.  His  sense  of  perspective  is  in 
its  formative  stage  and  this  causes  many- 
molehills  to  loom  high  as  mountains.  He 
is  now  his  own  most  severe  critic  and  imag- 
ines that  his  immature  conclusions  as  to  his 
personality  are  shared  by  all  others ;  and 
74 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

many  hours  of  humility  and  mental  depres- 
sion ensue  from  this  condition.  Egotism 
and  an  exalted  appreciation  of  his  own  worth 
are  also  manifest,  due  to  the  same  unco- 
ordinated sense  of  values.  He  often  ex- 
hibits alternate  states  of  exaltation  and  de- 
pression produced  by  a  trifling  remark  or 
a  trivial  incident  which  is  given  an  impor- 
tance it  does  not  deserve.  As  he  advances 
through  this  period,  his  perspective  finds 
truer  adjustment,  his  sense  of  values  be- 
comes settled,  his  judgment  ripens  and  these 
anomalies  disappear.  But  he  may  be  saved 
many  hours  of  soul-stress  by  the  father  who 
is  able  to  diagnose  his  condition,  or  who  is 
on  sufficiently  intimate  terms  of  confidence 
with  his  son  to  inspire  a  frank  avowal  of  his 
troubles.  Here  is  the  opportunity  for  the 
father  to  apply  his  common  sense,  ripe  judg- 
ment and  experience  to  the  solution  of  these 
problems  of  the  later  adolescent. 
75 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  his 
impressionability  to  religious  influences  dur- 
ing the  early  part  of  this  period  through  an 
appeal  based  in  intellectualism  (as  distin- 
guished from  the  emotionalism  of  the  pre- 
ceding period) ,  to  which  the  ethical  concepts 
now  being  formed  are  closely  related. 

;\  Another  distinguishing  trait  is  the  evolu- 
ion  of  his  sociological  consciousness  through 
vhich  he  recognizes  himself  as  a  unit  in  the 
jocial  economy,  with  all  its  attendant  rights 
and  duties.  He  discards  the  selfishness  and 
individualism  of  an  earlier  era  and  adopts 
the  obligations  of  altruism.  His  desire  to 
be  of  genuine  service  to  his  fellow  man  seeks 
expression  first  in  visionary  plans  to  reform 
the  world,  followed  afterward  by  practical 
work  in  help  for  others,  such  as  leadership 
in  boys'  clubs,  secretarial  duties  or  teach- 
ing in  Sunday  schools,  or  similar  employ- 
ments of  altruistic  purport.  Government 
76 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

under  processes  of  law  takes  on  a  newer, 
clearer  and  more  personal  meaning.  And 
with  it  comes  recognition  of  civic  respon- 
sibility. 

Intellectual  storms  gather  when  vague, 
unassorted,  inchoate,  and  impossible  theories 
of  social  and  political  reform — long  since 
tried  and  discarded — loom  big  on  his  horizon 
and  are  eagerly  seized  upon  and  advocated 
as  original  discoveries.  His  opinions  are  ex- 
pressed with  a  dogmatism  which  character- 
izes the  cocksureness  of  youth.  Verbal  limi- 
tations inspired  by  sound  judgment  and 
broad  experience,  as  well  as  the  cautious 
phraseology  of  scientific  conservatism  have 
no  place  in  his  vocabulary.  His  theories  are 
all  promulgated  with  an  arrogant  assertive- 
ness  born  of  the  optimism  of  inexperience. 
He  is  now  fairly  bursting  with  self-impor- 
tance. But  all  these  manifestations  are  im- 
portant only  as  indicating  his  desire  to  solve 
77 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

Vthe  great  problems  of  life  and  are  the  pre- 
cursors of  a  sounder  judgment  which  will 
come  with  maturity  of  intellect  and  experi- 
ence. 

It  is  at  or  near  the  beginning  of  this  peri- 
od that  the  youth  looks  down  on  the  younger 
boy,  whom  he  characterizes  as  a  "kid."  The 
dislike  and  even  positive  aversion  of  the 
older  boy  for  companionship  with  the 
younger  has  its  basis  not  so  much  in  their 
differing  physical  and  mental  attainments 
as  in  their  differing  viewpoints  caused 
by  their  unequal  psychological  development. 
Illustration  of  this  may  be  observed  in  two 
boys,  both  of  whom  are  sixteen  years  of  age 
and  of  equal  mentality  and  physique,  one 
of  whom  has  and  the  other  has  not  entered 
the  reflective  period.  Such  boys  are  out  of 
harmony  with  each  other  in  every  taste,  de- 
sire, and  predilection  which  is  actuated  by 
psychological  impulse,  and  find  a  common 
78 


ADOLESCENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

ground  of  companionship  only  in  athletics 
and  classroom  studies. 

Will  power,  bom  during  the  heroic  periA 
od,  is  now  stimulated  to  rapid  growth  which  \ 
culminates  during  the  latter  part  of  the  re- 
flective period.      No  longer  is  he  a  straw 
borne  on  every  passing  wind  of  influence, 
but  a  human  being  capable  of  exercising  a 
moral  choice  between  two  courses  of  action. 

His  mental  and  moral  stature  has  been 
reached  by  gradual  and  almost  unnoticed 
gradations;  and  such  growth,  which  had  its 
beginning  in  blank  chaos,  has  been  even 
greater  and  more  marvelous  than  his  phys- 
ical growth  between  birth  and  maturity. 

Self-flattered,  unexperienced,  high  in  hope, 
When  young,  with  sanguine  cheer  and  streamers 


We  cut  our  cable,  launch  into  the  world 
And  fondly  dream  each  wind  and  star  our  friend. 
—  Young's  NIGHT  THOUGHTS. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  BOY'S  VIEWPOINT 

A  CORRECT  understanding  of  boy- 
nature  is  conditioned  on  one's  ability 
to  obtain  his  point  of  view,  which  differs 
widely  from  that  of  the  adult.  It  has  been 
stated  in  a  previous  chapter  that  the  view- 
points of  a  boy  at  six,  ten,  fourteen,  and 
eighteen  years  of  age  differ  as  widely  from 
each  other  as  those  of  four  adults  of  remotely 
differing  natures  and  temperaments.  We 
frequently  make  the  mistake  of  assuming 
that  the  boy  is  a  small  edition  of  a  man,  pos- 
sessing faculties,  emotions,  desires,  and  un- 
derstanding the  same  as  in  the  adult  but 
developed  in  a  lesser  degree.  On  the  con- 
trary, his  mental  and  psychological  proc- 

80 


THE  BOY'S  VIEWPOINT 

esses  differ  fundamentally  from  those  of 
maturity.  Boys  are  not  little  men  and 
should  not  be  judged  by  men's  stand- 
ards. 

The  ignorant  peasant  who  views  the  mas- 
terpieces of  the  Louvre  sees  them  through 
dull,  uncomprehending  eyes.  He  sees  but 
does  not  perceive^  because  his  appreciation 
of  artistic  beauty  is  limited  by  a  circum- 
scribed capacity.  Just  so,  the  boy,  circum- 
scribed by  the  limitations  of  his  mind  and 
soul,  views  life  and  its  complex  manifesta- 
tions with  such  capacities  as  he  possesses. 
If  your  mental  and  psychological  limits 
were  those  of  a  boy  in  the  hero-worship  peri- 
od, your  tastes,  desires,  judgments,  opinions, 
and  actions  would  conform  exactly  to  that 
boy-standard.  Your  standards  of  ambition 
and  achievement  would  be  purely  physical 
and  therefore  you  would  prefer  the  prize 
fighter  to  the  scientist. 
81 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

The  physical  and  mental  requirements  for 
youth  and  age  are  as  wide  apart  as  the  two 
poles.  As  reminiscence  characterizes  old  age, 
so  enjoyment  of  the  present  typifies  young 
age.  The  Bard  of  Avon  has  thus  compared 
their  physical  and  mental  characteristics: 

Crabbed  age  and  youth, 

Cannot  live  together; 

Youth  is  full  of  pleasure, 

Age  is  full  of  care: 

Youth  like  summer  morn, 

Age  like  winter  weather; 

Youth  like  summer  brave, 

Age  like  winter  bare; 

Youth  is  full  of  sport, 

Age's  breath  is  short; 

Youth  is  nimble,  age  is  lame; 

Youth  is  hot  and  bold, 

Age  is  weak  and  cold; 

Youth  is  wild  and  age  is  tame. 

Age  I  do  abhor  thee; 

O,  my  love,  my  love  is  young: 

Age  I  do  defy  thee; 

O  sweet  shepherd  hie  thee, 

For  methinks  thou  stay'st  too  long. 

82 


THE  BOY'S  VIEWPOINT 

An  elderly  maiden  sat  one  sunny  after- 
noon in  May  engrossed  with  her  knitting, 
while  a  crowd  of  boys  were  engaged  in  the 
great  American  game  of  baseball  on  the  lot 
beneath  her  window.  It  would  be  super- 
fluous to  say  they  were  noisy.  From  her 
viewpoint  both  noise  and  violent  physical 
activity  were  unnecessary,  disagreeable,  and 
trying  to  one's  nerves.  The  nuisance  must 
be  suppressed.  Accordingly  she  poked  her 
head  out  of  the  window  and  directed  a  shrill 
scream  at  the  disturbers  of  her  peace,  "Go 
away  from  here,  you  bad  boys,  and  stop  mak- 
ing that  noise !"  In  a  flash  came  back  the 
retort,  "G'wan  away  yourself!"  while  a  boy 
grumbled  to  his  companion,  "She  don't  know 
nothin'  'bout  having  fun."  Both  were  right, 
judging  from  their  respective  points  of  view, 
and  both  were  wrong  when  considered  from 
the  other's  viewpoint.  Neither  understood 
the  other.  Old  age  requires  peace,  silence, 
83 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

and  cessation  from  physical  activity.  Youth 
requires  noise,  bustle,  and  violent  exercise 
for  its  growth.  Activity  symbolizes  success. 
Passivity  spells  failure. 

The  boy  in  athletics,  like  the  adult  laborer 
in  his  daily  toil,  uses  the  primary  muscles 
of  his  arms,  legs,  and  torso.  With  the  de- 
velopment of  his  mentality,  he  develops  and 
employs  his  secondary  muscles.  Psychology 
is  intimately  related  to  athletics.  For  this 
reason,  the  gymnastic  apparatus  which  is 
suited  to  adults  is  wholly  unsuited  to  boys, 
and  this  is  quite  apart  from  differences  due 
to  the  unequal  size  and  strength  of  the  users. 
Witness  the  aversion  of  the  boy  to  the  use 
of  Indian  clubs  whose  intricate  manipula- 
tions require  the  employment  of  the  second- 
ary muscles  of  the  wrist  and  arm,  while  he 
willingly  uses  dumb  bells  which  call  into 
play  his  primary  muscles. 

His  inability  for  sustained  mental  effort 
84 


THE  BOY'S  VIEWPOINT 

is  coordinated  with  his  disability  for  sus- 
tained physical  effort.  Hence  he  passes  by, 
with  a  curiosity-Satisfying  trial,  the  chest 
weights  and  rowing  machines  of  the  adult 
which  require  the  continuous  expenditure  of 
energy.  So  also  the  competitive  spirit  of 
boyhood  must  be  gratified  by  the  use  of  such 
gymnastic  apparatus  and  games  as  develop 
competition.  The  boy  will  not  exercise  for 
exercise's  sake.  He  will  not  even  do  it  to 
achieve  the  altruistic  result  of  a  strong 
physique.  But  he  will  exercise  and  play 
games  to  excel  the  other  fellow.  The  boy 
who  is  alone  in  a  gymnasium  has  as  stupid 
a  time  as  the  boy  who  is  compelled  by  neces- 
sity to  play  baseball  with  himself. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  learn  the  boy's 
opinion  of  certain  adults  if  he  were  able  to 
accurately  analyze  and  express  his  conclu- 
sions. The  crabbed  demeanor  of  the  pes- 
simist out  of  touch  with  boy-life  is  as  of- 
85 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING  ' 

fensive  to  the  boy  as  the  latter's  noise  and 
giddiness  are  objectionable  to  the  former. 
Observe  the  mental  rheumatics  of  the  mis- 
anthrope in  these  grouchy  grumblings  from 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  "Wit  Without 
Money": 

What  benefit  can  children  be  but  charges  and 
disobedience?  What's  the  love  they  render  at 
one  and  twenty  years?  I  pray  die,  father:  when 
they  are  young,  they  are  like  bells  rung  back- 
wards, nothing  but  noise  and  giddiness. 

And  from  what  a  different  vision-vantage 
were  penned  these  lines,  overflowing  with 
love  and  understanding  of  childhood,  which 
are  a  model  of  sympathetic  comprehension 
of  the  child's  needs: 

Delightful  task!  to  rear  the  tender  thought, 
To  teach  the  young  idea  how  to  shoot, 
To  pour  fresh  instruction  o'er  the  mind, 
To  breathe  the  enlivening  spirit  and  to  fix 
The  generous  purpose  in  the  glowing  breast ! 
— Thomson's  SEASONS. 

86 


THE  BOY'S  VIEWPOINT 

To  understand  the  boy's  viewpoint  we 
must  be  able  to  put  ourselves  in  his  place. 
We  must  renew  our  youth.  The  trouble 
with  so  many  of  us  is  that  we  never  acquire 
juvenescence  until  second-childhood.  We 
should  be  able  to  assign  the  boy  to  the 
psychological  period  to  which  he  belongs  by 
reason  of  his  development,  and  thus  knowing 
the  mental  and  moral  status  of  an  inhabitant 
of  that  period,  we  are  able  to  see  things 
through  his  glasses.  The  mental  myopia 
and  moral  astigmatism  of  youth  will  then 
be  recognized  as  a  defect  of  immaturity 
which  training  and  years  will  cure.  Juvenil- 
ity may  be  reacquired  in  maturity  if  we 
string-halted  adults  would  only  seek  rejuv- 
enation at  the  fountain  of  youthful  under- 
standing where  we  may  obtain  a  flood  of 
knowledge  concerning  boy-life.  The  jour- 
ney is  apparently  too  long  and  too  difficult 
for  the  lazy  or  indifferent  grown-up.  The 
87 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

heart  of  a  boy  is  not  worn  on  his  sleeve.  He 
reveals  it  only  to  those  who  command  his 
perfect  confidence  and  such  confidence  is 
given  to  those,  and  to  those  only,  who  un- 
derstand him.  The  aloofness  of  children  to- 
ward certain  adults  is  because  they  have 
nothing  in  common.  Each  misunderstands 
the  other.  As  it  is  obviously  impossible  for 
the  child  to  understand  and  attune  himself 
to  adult  mental  processes,  it  becomes  neces- 
sary for  the  adult  to  comprehend  child- 
nature  and  to  put  himself  in  harmony  with  it. 
Happy  the  man  who  can  make  himself  a 
boy  again!  He  retains  a  thousand  joys 
which  other  adults  have  irretrievably  lost. 
Such  an  one  is  a  natural  leader  and  teacher 
of  boys.  They  delight  to  make  him  their 
hero.  His  influence  with  boys  is  commen- 
surate with  his  understanding  of  life  in  Boy- 
ville.  You  must  go  to  this  juvenile  city  and 
live  there,  learn  its  laws,  customs,  and  man- 
88 


THE  BOY'S  VIEWPOINT 

ners,  and  if  possible  place  yourself  in  a  sym- 
pathetic attitude  of  understanding  without 
which  you  can  never  hope  to  be  initiated  into 
the  mysteries  of  adolescence.  The  honor  of 
being  admitted  to  the  confidence  and  fellow- 
ship of  boys  is  not  permitted  to  all  men — 
only  to  those  who  have  retained  or  who  are 
able  to  acquire  the  boy's  viewpoint.  "There 
is  a  wall  around  the  town  of  Boyville,"  says 
William  Allen  White,  "which  is  impene- 
trable when  its  gates  have  once  shut  upon 
youth.  An  adult  may  peer  over  the  wall 
and  try  to  ape  the  games  inside,  but  finds 
it  all  a  mockery  and  himself  banished  among 
purblind  grown-ups.  The  town  of  Boyville 
was  old  when  Nineveh  was  a  hamlet;  it  is 
ruled  by  ancient  laws ;  has  its  own  rules  and 
idols ;  and  only  the  dim,  unreal  noises  of  the 
adult  world  about  it  have  changed." 

The  boy  lives  in  the  present,  with  little    \ 
thought  of  the  future;  he  is  concerned  with 
89 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

today,  not  the  next  decade.  His  mental 
processes  do  not  prompt  him  to  speculate 
as  to  the  effect  of  present  acts  on  future 
character.  He  has  neither  the  mental  nor 
moral  equipment  for  such  foresight  or  de- 
duction; it  is  a  task  beyond  his  capabilities. 
This  burden  must  be  shouldered  by  the  par- 
ent who  should  not  only  do  the  child's  think- 
ing for  him  until  the  latter  is  able  to  do  it 
for  himself,  but  should  also  drill,  train,  and 
educate  the  boy  until  he  is  able  to  make  nice 
distinctions  between  right  and  wrong,  and 
should  cultivate  his  will  power  until  he  can 
school  himself  into  an  acceptance  of  the  good 
as  against  the  bad.  Until  the  child's  mind, 
will,  and  moral  sense  have  reached  this  stage 
of  growth,  the  parent  must  substitute  his 
own  mind,  will,  and  moral  sense.  In  de- 
termining the  degree  of  capability  of  a 
child's  offense,  wre  should  ask  ourselves  the 
question:  "What  is  the  developmental  stage 
90 


THE  BOY'S  VIEWPOINT 

of  his  faculties  which  made  the  offense  pos- 
sible?" Harsh  and  stern  estimates  of  child- 
ish frailties  usually  result  from  the  applica- 
tion of  the  adult  viewpoint  and  the  adult 
standard.  The  failure  to  consider  the  view- 
point and  standards  of  the  adolescent  causes 
much  injustice  to  the  boy  and  results  in 
many  mistakes  in  his  training. 

The  brightness,  joyousness,  and  optimism 
of  youth  suffuses  life  with  an  iridescent 
glow.  All  the  world  is  bathed  in  roseate 
hues  when  seen  through  the  rose-colored 
glasses  of  youth.  When  we  get  so  old  that 
we  delight  in  sitting  by  the  fire,  toasting  our 
slippered  feet,  and  prefer  to  listen  to  our 
arteries  harden  rather  than  to  hear  the  noise 
and  laughter  of  boyhood,  we  are  out  of  tune 
with  the  harmonies  of  boy-life. 


CHAPTER  VI 

OBEDIENCE 

THERE  hangs  in  the  bedroom  of  the 
children  of  a  certain  devout  mother 
a  large  frame  which  contains,  in  illuminated 
letters,  the  twentieth  verse  of  the  third  chap- 
ter of  Paul's  "Epistle  to  the  Colossians": 
"Children,  obey  your  parents  in  all  things; 
for  this  is  well  pleasing  to  the  Lord."  In 
commenting  on  this  visual  injunction  she 
said:  "Obedience  is  the  chief  corner  stone 
of  child-training  and  I  have  thus  endeavored 
to  fix  it  in  the  memories  of  my  children  for 
all  time."  The  commandment — "Honor  thy 
father  and  thy  mother" — is  just  as  real  and 
vital  today  as  it  was  in  the  time  of 
Moses,  although  present-day  home  condi- 
92 


OBEDIENCE 

tions  are  not  always  conducive  to  its  observ- 
ance. 

Too  many  children  of  the  present,  espe- 
cially during  adolescence,  regard  their  par- 
ents with  an  attitude  of  tolerant  sufferance 
— as  necessary  evils  to  be  endured  by  them 
but  exhibiting  little  patience  in  their  tolera- 
tion. They  consider  them  old-fogy,  behind 
the  times,  uncomprehending  and  unsympa- 
thetic with  their  interests,  plans,  and  aspira- 
tions. Father  is  esteemed  largely  in  propor- 
tion to  his  success  as  a  producer;  while 
mother  is  valued  in  accordance  with  her  con- 
tributions to  their  physical  comfort;  and  this 
imperfect  recognition  of  parental  aid  com- 
prises the  sum.  total  of  their  gratitude;  for 
no  acknowledgment  is  ever  made  of  their  ob- 
ligation for  the  years  of  watchfulness  of 
health  or  solicitude  for  morals  or  cultivation 
of  the  spiritual  life.  This  attitude  is  due 
partly  to  the  psychological  unbalance  of  the 
93 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

adolescent  and  partly  to  the  slovenly,  incon- 
sistent, and  wishy-washy  methods  of  govern- 
ment used  by  the  parent,  which  inspire  in  the 
youth  not  only  disobedience  but  contempt 
for  parental  authority  which  is  as  vacillating 
as  a  weather  cock.  Without  obedience  the 
child  drifts  aimlessly  and  develops  a  char- 
acter as  unstable  as  the  parental  system  of 
training  is  fluctuating.  Confirmed  cases  of 
juvenile  disobedience  can  be  traced,  almost 
without  exception,  to  the  jellyfish  methods 
of  spineless  parents.  An  increase  in  rigidity 
of  parental  backbone  will  result  in  a  cor- 
responding increase  in  filial  obedience. 

Obedience  is  the  fundamental  law  of  child- 
training  and  upon  it  the  development  of  fu- 
ture character  is  predicated.  Obedience  in 
children  is  too  frequently  regarded  by  par- 
ents as  the  chief  end  of  training,  and  not 
as  the  means  to  the  end,  which  is  character. 
The  young  child  has  neither  code  of  morals 
94 


OBEDIENCE 

nor  a  standard  of  ethics,  but  is  a  rule  unto 
himself,  propelled  only  by  impulses  of  selfish 
interest.  The  chief  objective  of  child-train- 
ing is  the  cultivation  and  fixation  of  a  high 
moral  code  which  produces  character.  The 
secondary  objectives  are  the  conservation  of 
health  and  discipline  of  the  intellectual  fac- 
ulties, the  latter  including  the  communica- 
tion of  knowledge. 

Parental  prohibitions  of  undesirable  acts, 
as  well  as  suggestions  of  wished- for  conduct, 
should  be  so  uniform,  constant,  and  consist- 
ent that  the  child  will  be  able  to  deduce  from 
them  what  his  course  of  conduct  should  be 
when  confronted  in  the  future  with  the  de- 
sire to  do  or  not  to  do  an  act  of  similar 
nature.  It  is  thus  that  he  builds  up  his 
standard  of  conduct  and  formulates  his  code 
of  morals.  Trivial  objections  to  acts  or  con- 
duct, not  grounded  in  reason  and  justice, 
inspire  disrespect  for  parents  and  disobedi- 
95 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

ence  to  their  authority,  and  befog  the  moral 
vision  of  childhood.  If  the  child  is  to  respect 
parental  authority,  he  must  have  been  so 
habituated  to  obedience  by  the  parental  sys- 
tem of  government  that  he  will  obey  easily 
and  involuntarily  from  force  of  habit.  Habit 
is  the  tendency  to  do  naturally,  easily,  and 
with  growing  certainty  those  things  which 
we  are  accustomed  by  constant  repetition  to 
do.  The  habit  of  obedience  is  formed  most 
easily  in  early  childhood  and  when  obedience 
becomes  crystallized  into  habit,  a  strong 
foundation  has  been  laid  for  the  building  of 
strong  character. 

Obedience  is  cultivated  by  consistency  in 
parental  commands  which  invariably  must 
be  founded  on  reason  and  justice  and  en- 
forced with  a  firmness  of  will  which  cannot 
be  swayed  by  sentimental  considerations 
of  leniency.  Consistency  is  a  jewel  which 
shines  nowhere  so  brightly  as  in  the 
96 


OBEDIENCE 

crown   of   child-training,    but   it   must   be 
mounted    in    resolute    adherence    to    fixed 


ideals  of  character-culture.  Obedience 
should  be  distinguished  from  unwilling 
submission  to  a  superior  force.  The  former 
implies  subjection  of  the  will  and  actions  to 
rightful  restraint  and  not  servile  submission 
to  authority  which  is  exercised  unjustly.  The 
founders  of  our  republic  were  obedient  to 
the  highest  promptings  of  liberty  and  justice 
when  they  revolted  against  the  many  acts 
of  injustice  imposed  by  the  mother  country. 
Likewise  the  obedience  of  a  child  can  be  en- 
forced only  through  parental  commands 
which  are  founded  on*  justice  and  reason; 
and  we  should  even  go  a  step  farther  and 
convince  him  that  they  are-just  andjreasoii^ 
able.  Here  is  a  typical  case:  A  boy  re- 
quested permission  of  his  mother  to  go 
swimming — as  boys  are  wont  to  do. 
She  replied,  "No!  you  may  not  go!" 
97 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

"But  why  not,  mother?"  was  the  natural 
and  reasonable  inquiry  of  her  son. 

"Just  because  I  don't  want  you  to  go," 
was  the  unconvincing  answer. 

"Ah !  that's  no  reason,  mother.  Why  can't 
I  go?" 

"Because  I  have  said  no!  Now,  that  set- 
tles it!"  And  with  this  answer  she  con- 
cluded the  colloquy. 

Defeated  and  depressed,  but  unconvinced, 
the  boy  shuffled  sullenly  around  the  corner 
of  the  house  and  out  behind  the  barn  where 
he  raged  and  rebelled  at  the  autocratic  exer- 
cise of  the  authority  of  which  he  had  been 
the  victim,  until  present  desire  overcame  the 
fear  of  future  punishment  and  soon  the  old 
swimming  hole  resounded  with  the  splash 
of  another  lithe,  young  body.  His  disobedi- 
ence was  the  logical  sequence  of  an  attitude 
which  violated  both  the  principles  of  psy- 
chology and  the  dictates  of  reason  and  jus- 
98 


OBEDIENCE 

tice.  If  the  mother  had  assigned  any  reason- 
able excuse  for  withholding  her  permission 
she  would  have  measurably  satisfied  her 
son's  sense  of  fairness  and  justice,  however 
reluctantly  his  acquiescence,  prompted  by 
the  denial  of  personal  pleasure,  may  have 
been  given.  Instead,  she  unconsciously  chose 
a  course  which  planted  the  seed  of  disobedi- 
ence and  evasion  whose  ultimate  fruition 
might  even  be  rebellion  against  all  maternal 
authority,  and  following  that — delinquency. 
The  boy  is  a  rational  human  being,  how- 
ever much  we  may  ignore  his  capacity  for 
reason,  and  the  continued  violation  of  his 
standards  of  right  and  justice  will  ultimately 
destroy  those  standards  and  compel  him  to 
adopt  a  code  based  on  expediency  instead 
of  morals.  Laws  are  obeyed  by  adults  in 
the  proportion  that  they  are  supported  by 
public  opinion  as  being  just  and  reasonable; 
and,  conversely,  they  are  disobeyed  when 
99 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

deemed  unjustly  restrictive  or  violative  of 
personal  rights.  Witness  the  disregard  for 
sumptuary  laws  in  certain  local  communities 
which  entertain  convictions  against  the 
abridgment  of  their  so-called  personal  liber- 
ties, where  such  laws  have  been  imposed  by 
the  legislative  enactment  of  a  state  the  ma- 
jority of  whose  voters  favor  prohibition. 
Some  of  our  reputedly  good  citizens  evade 
the  payment  of  a  large  part  of  the  taxes  im- 
posed on  them  by  law  for  the  reason  that 
they  believe  the  tax  laws  to  be  inequitable 
and  unjust  in  placing  too  great  a  burden  on 
one  class,  with  a  corresponding  exemption 
to  another  class. 

From  general  observation,  as  well  as  from 
the  records  of  our  penal  courts,  we  may  de- 
duce the  proposition  that  obedience  to  stat- 
ute by  normal  men  rests  largely  on  their 
belief  in  the  justice  of  law  and  the  reason- 
ableness of  the  exercise  of  the  authority 
100 


OBEDIENCE 

which  is  predicated  on  such  layv,  JJ&TAT,  in  the 
domain  of  childhood,  is  parental  comnwd ; 
and  even  though  the  child's  sense  of  justice 
may  not  be  as  discriminating  as  that  of  the 
parent,  nevertheless  it  is  strong  enough  and 
deep  enough  to  impel  him  to  resist,  by  eva- 
sion, subterfuge,  deceit,  or  other  means  at 
hand,  those  parental  laws  which  he  believes 
to  be  founded  on  mere  caprice  or  positive  in- 
justice. We  must  promulgate  reasonable 
commands  if  we  are  to  expect  reasonable 
compliance  with  them,  and  we  shall  suffer 
no  loss  of  dignity  by  frankly  explaining  to 
our  children  the  reasons  which  underlie  our 
mandates.  Although  the  child  may  be  un- 
able at  all  times  to  follow  our  line  of  reason- 
ing, or  to  agree  wholly  with  our  conclusions, 
he  will,  at  any  rate,  be  convinced  that  o 
orders  do  not  emanate  from  capricious  fancy, 
but  have  a  semblance  of  justice  as  their  basis. 
Even  paternal  example  is  not  without  its 
101 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

influence  on  the  keenly  observing  mind  of 
youth.  The  seventeen-year-old  son  of  a 
neighbor  was  detected  smoking  a  cigarette 
the  day  following  the  direct  injunction  of 
his  father  that  he  should  not  do  so.  %  When 
reproved  by  his  father  for  disobedience,  the 
son  retorted:  "Well,  dad,  why  don't  you 
obey  the  law?  You  shot  ducks  out  of  sea- 


son." 


The  delinquent  children  who  flow  in  a 
steady  stream  through  our  juvenile  courts 
are  undisciplined,  self-willed,  and  rebellious 
against  authority  and  are  governed  only  by 
impulse  which  is  as  spasmodic  as  their  con- 
duct is  abnormal.  Obedience  has  never  found 
a  place  in  the  poor  moral  equipment  with 
which  they  are  endowed.  Practically  every 
moral  derelict  stranded  on  the  human  scrap- 
pile  can  trace  his  failure  in  life  to  his  dis- 
obedience in  childhood;  and  the  fault  is  not 
wholly  his  own  but  rests  largely  on  the 
102 


OBEDIENCE 

shoulders  of  parents  who  failed  to  compel 
obedience  in  the  early  years  when  compul- 
sion was  possible  through  firm  and  just  regu- 
lation. 

The  boy  who  is  early  indoctrinated  in 
obedience  becomes  plastic  material  ready  to 
be  shaped,  through  training,  in  the  stature 
of  a  man  of  fine  moral  quality. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  REPRESSIVE  METHOD  OF  TRAINING 

THE  training  of  the  child  should  begin 
as  soon  as  it  is  able  to  comprehend 
spoken  language.  A  venerable  mother  who 
had  reared  eleven  children  and  had  seen  them 
attain  successful  and  honorable  positions  in 
life  was  asked  the  question:  "At  what  time 
should  the  training  of  a  child  begin?"  Her 
answer  was:  "In  the  cradle."  And,  it  is 
needless  to  add,  it  should  be  continued  to 
maturity.  There  are,  broadly  speaking,  two 
general  plans  of  training  which  may  be 
termed  respectively  the  repressive  method 
I  and  the  suggestive  method. 

The   repressive    method    of   training   is 
founded  on  the  principle  of  negation.      It 
104 


THE  REPRESSIVE  METHOD 

seeks  to  make  the  boy  do  right  by  constant 
admonition  not  to  do  wrong.     It  proceeds 
on  the  theory  that  elimination  of  the  bad  will/ 
leave  the  good.    It  is  indirect  in  its  methods 
as  well  as  its  results. 

The  negative  system  of  training  manifests 
itself  in  such  commands  as,  "Don't  make 
that  noise;"  "Don't  bother  me,  I'm  busy;" 
"Don't  slide  down  the  cellar  door;"  "Don't 
talk  so  loud;"  "Don't  play  in  the  house;" 
"Don't  tease  sister;"  "Don't  eat  so  much;" 
"Don't  soil  your  clothes;"  "Don't  bring 
those  boys  into  the  house;"  "Don't  scuff  out 
your  shoes;"  "Don't  get  your  hands  dirty;" 
"Don't  be  tardy  at  school;"  "Don't  wear 
out  the  seat  of  your  pants ;"  and  so  on  with- 
out'end. 

No  boy  ever  thrived  on  an  indigestible  diet 
of  don'ts. 

Jacob  Riis,  writing  in  the  Outlook,  says : 
"Write  the  one  word  'Don't'  there,  and  only 
105 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

that,  and  the  boy  if  he  has  any  spirit  will 
take  to  the  jungle.  Every  father  knows  it; 
every  teacher  has  learned  it,  if  he  has  learned 
anything." 

While  this  system  has  a  modicum  of  worth 
in  certain  of  its  applications,  it  lacks  the  com- 
prehensiveness and  directness  necessary  to 
accomplish  the  best  results. 

The  prohibition  of  reading  dime  novels, 
nickel  libraries  and  other  blood-and-thunder 
tales,  without  the  suggestion  of  adventure 
stories  of  definite  ethical  and  moral  value  to 
fill  the  vacuum  thus  created  in  his  emotional 
life,  is  another  conspicuous  example  of  the 
repressive  method  of  training — which  does 
not  repress  but  impels  the  boy  to  continue 
his  lurid  reading  in  secret. 

[The  error  of  the  system  lies  in  taking 
something  essential  away  from  the  boy  with- 
out giving  him  an  adequate  substitute.    It 
is  damming  up  the  stream  without  provid- 
106 


THE  REPRESSIVE  METHOD 

ing  a  spillway,  and  is  as  ineffective  as  it  is 
unpsychological.  The  current  of  his  activi- 
ties will  find  a  channel  as  surely  as  water  will 
find  its  level.  Instead  of  attempting  to  check 
the  flow,  we  should  direct  it  into  channels  for 
good.  This  repression,  if  persistent,  will 
dwarf  the  child's  initiative  and  compel  him 
to  grope  in  the  dark  to  find  out  what  is  per- 
missible. It  is  as  fallacious  in  practice  as  a 
system  of  teaching,  if  such  could  be  con- 
ceived, which  would  give  the  boy  a  hundred 
guesses  to  learn  a  fact,  instead  of  the  teach- 
er's direct  statement  of  the  fact.  It  is  the 
maze  of  a  labyrinth  which  envelops  the  trav- 
eler in  hopeless  confusion  and  its  effect  can 
only  be  depressing  and  disheartening  to  the 
child.  We  frequently  make  the  mistake  of 
underestimating  the  reasoning  powers  of  our 
children,  which  prompts  us  with  autocratic 
dogmatism  to  forbid  their  acts  without  an 
explanation  of  the  reasons  why  or  the  sug- 
107 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

gestion  of  a  substitute  to  fill  the  void  caused 
by  the  prohibition. 

"Stop  making  that  noise!"  is  a  command 
hurled  at  the  playful  boy  with  such  fre- 
quency that  it  no  longer  excites  comment. 
It  is  natural  for  boys  to  play,  yell,  make 
a  noise,  and  wear  out  clothes.  They  are  the 
exuberant  manifestations  of  his  physical  and 
emotional  nature ;  the  expression  of  the  ata- 
vistic tendencies  of  man;  the  safety  valve 
which  relieves  the  pressure  of  superabundant 
vitality.  As  he  is  in  the  savage  period  of 
his  life  he  yells  like  a  savage.  You  may  as 
well  tell  a  pup  not  to  bark  as  to  tell  a  boy 
not  to  yell.  It  is  the  nature  of  the  animal. 
We  should  recognize  this  fact  by  conforming 
to  nature — not  opposing  it — because  it  is  the 
normal  condition  of  the  normal  boy.  I  have 
a  profound  pity  for  the  boy  who  prefers  to 
sit  by  his  mother's  knee  and  read  a  book  on 
his  holiday,  instead  of  joining  the  gang  in 
108 


THE  REPRESSIVE  METHOD 

playing  tag  or  getting  up  a  scrub  game  of 
baseball.  Such  a  boy  is  abnormal;  he  is 
not  "all  boy";  he  is  either  sick  or  mentally 
deficient  and  either  condition  should  inspire 
the  gravest  solicitude  of  his  parents  as  to 
his  future.  We  do  not  want  to  rear  a  race 
of  anemic  runts. 

The  young  of  all  mammals  manifest  the 
play  spirit  as  a  means  of  growth.  Colt,  calf, 
lamb,  kitten,  pup,  and  boy  all  exhibit  this 
tendency  of  nature.  These  things  are  the 
cause  of  growth,  not  only  physical,  but  men- 
tal and  moral  as  well.  The  educational  value 
of  play  is  one  of  the  most  important  factors 
in  the  boy's  evolution.  It  is  the  expression 
of  his  being,  his  growth,  his  aspirations  and 
his  future.  By  play,  he  trains  his  eye,  his 
hand,  his  mind  and  his  muscles;  his  moral 
conceptions  are  formed;  he  learns  to  distin- 
guish between  right  and  wrong,  and  the 
recognition  of  individual  and  property  rights 
109 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

begins  to  emerge  from  his  nascent  moral  con- 
sciousness. Games  with  companions  develop 
the  social  instincts.  Through  them  he  first 
realizes  that  he  is  a  social  unit — a  thread  in 
the  social  fabric  of  humanity.  Action,  con- 
stant action,  is  the  keynote  to  his  present  and 
the  hope  of  his  future.  He  aches  for  action. 
If  the  boy's  play  and  noise  disturb  you,  do 
not  squelch  him,  but  rather  provide  him  with 
a  place  in  which  he  may  exercise  these  mani- 
festations of  his  nature  without  causing  you 
annoyance.  A  playroom  in  the  house  or 
barn,  a  tent,  the  lawn,  the  park,  the  great 
woods  of  the  country  are  all  ideal  play- 
grounds for  boys  which  satisfy  the  savage 
spirit  of  his  nature.  There  ought  to  be  ample 
room  in  this  great  world  of  ours  for  the 
growth  and  development  of  our  future  men. 
Objection  is  sometimes  made  that  sports 
are  a  non-productive  form  of  energy — a 
waste  of  time  and  strength  which  might  be 
110 


THE  REPRESSIVE  METHOD 

employed  in  manual  training  or  in  work  of 
economic  value  capable  of  being  measured  in 
terms  of  money.  It  is  true  that  the  athletics 
and  games  of  boys  have  no  money  value,  nor 
are  they  designed  for  such  purpose,  but  the 
energy  expended  is  not  wasted.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  highly  productive  of  both  physical 
and  moral  growth.  It  is  productive  of 
strong  bodies,  clear  eyes,  speed,  agility, 
strength,  quick  thinking,  sound  judgment,  a 
sense  of  fair  play,  self-confidence,  control 
of  temper,  coordination  of  brain  and  muscle, 
and  respect  for  the  rights  of  others.  Their 
value  is  educational  and  cultural — a  means 
to  an  end  and  not  the  end  itself.  The  boy 
who  by  reason  of  financial  necessity  is  re- 
quired to  become  a  breadwinner  is  deprived 
not  only  of  a  large  part  of  the  joys  of  boy- 
hood which  should  be  his  as  a  matter  of  right, 
but  of  many  physical  activities,  educational 
in  their  effect,  which  would  otherwise  train 
111 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

and  equip  him  both  mentally  and  physically 
for  service  in  adult  vocations  and  good  citi- 
zenship. The  repression  of  play  and  its  at- 
tendant noise  is  always  inspired  by  motives 
of  consideration  for  the  convenience  of  the 
adult  and  never  by  a  thought  of  its  effect 
on  the  boy  himself. 

The  repressive  method  of  training,  alone, 
is  ineffective  at  any  age,  but  if  it  is  used 
sparingly  in  early  childhood  and  then  only 
when  combined  with  suggestions  and  direc- 
tions for  activities  to  replace  those  prohibited 
it  produces  good  results.  As  the  child  grows 
in  years  the  positive,  constructive,  suggestive 
method  of  training  should  be  employed  ex- 
adusively. 

Quite  as  pernicious  as  the  repressive  meth- 
od is  the  passive  system  of  training — in  ef- 
fect no  training  at  all — which  permits  the 
boy  to  have  his  own  way  in  everything.  It 
is  the  resource  of  the  indulgent  and  lazy 
112 


THE  REPRESSIVE  METHOD 

parent  who  seeks  the  line  of  least  resistance. 
When  combined  with  a  lavish  supply  of 
money,  its  effects  are  usually  ruinous.  I 
know  a  boy  now  fifteen  years  of  age,  a  typi- 
cal spoiled  son  of  a  wealthy  father.  At  our 
first  meeting,  a  year  ago,  the  sartorial  dis- 
play on  his  stunted  physique  was  loud  and 
elaborate  and  was  the  work,  he  volunteered, 
of  his  father's  tailor.  He  was  decorated  with 
a  gold  watch  and  chain,  an  elaborate  scarf 
pin  and  two  finger  rings  conspicuous  for 
their  size.  He  immediately  began  to  boast 
to  the  little  group  of  boys  who  surrounded 
him  of  the  cost  and  superiority  of  his  clothes, 
his  rifle,  his  canoe  and  his  pony.  At  first, 
the  group  looked  on  in  mingled  awe  and  ad- 
miration. Then  their  keen  insight  and  sense 
of  humor  were  betrayed  in  the  knowing 
winks  and  nods  which  they  exchanged,  fol- 
lowed by  a  volley  of  questions  designed  to 
hold  him  up  to  ridicule,  until  the  poor  little 
113 


"YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

sham  of  a  boy,  unable  to  bear  their  raillery 
longer,  finally  blurted  out  in  an  attempt  to 
silence  his  inquisitors,  "My  father's  got  more 
money  than  all  of  your  fathers  put  together." 
I  have  long  held  the  belief  that  the  boy 
is  the  mirror  of  his  home.  A  subsequent 
acquaintance  with  the  lad's  father  and  his 
home  life  confirmed  my  impression  that  the 
sum  total  of  this  boy's  training  consisted  in 
gratifying  his  every  wish.  For  the  boy  to 
ask  was  to  receive.  While  the  father  ex- 
pended a  wealth  of  money,  he  did  not  expend 
a  single  thought  concerning  its  effect  on  his 
son.  Only  pity  can  be  evoked  at  the  plight 
of  such  a  boy  handicapped  as  he  is  by  these 
false  ideals  and  standards  of  life.  It  is  doubt- 
ful whether  even  the  unsympathetic,  stern 
and  harsh  discipline  of  the  brutalist  is  more 
conducive  to  crippled  character  than  the 
methods  of  the  lavish,  coddling  and  cosseting 
parent. 

114 


THE  REPRESSIVE  METHOD 

Parents  have  the  choice  of  two  plans  in 
correcting  faults  and  developing  character 
in  the  boy.  One  consists  in  the  prohibition 
of  acts  and  the  application  of  censure  for 
wrongdoing,  and  proceeds  on  the  theory  that 
the  consequences  of  wrongdoing  will  be 
made  so  unpleasant  that  he  will  abandon  the 
acts  complained  of  to  avoid  the  resulting 
censure.  The  other  plan  is  to  suggest  the 
desired  course  of  conduct  and  to  praise  the 
boy  for  his  good  acts  and  qualities  to  the 
extent  that  he  will  continually  seek  to  earn 
approval  by  doing  the  things  which  call  forth 
approbation.  The  boy,  like  the  adult,  is 
keenly  susceptible  to  praise.  The  exaltation 
of  spirit  which  follows  the  word  of  approval 
given  as  a  reward  for  good  deeds  is  a  con- 
tinued inspiration  to  future  goodness.  The 
effects  of  blame  are  depressing;  of  praise,  ^ 
stimulating. 

A  certain  boy  has  hanging  on  the  wall  of 
115 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

his  bedroom  an  honor  shield  on  which  silver 
"merit  stars"  are  placed  for  conspicuous 
good  deeds,  deportment,  and  scholarship.  As 
each  unworthy  act  or  failure  of  duty  causes 
the  removal  of  a  star,  the  owner  is  keenly 
alive  to  keeping  his  escutcheon  bright  with 
evidences  of  merit. 

The  boy  is  intensely  human,  although  we 
may  not  at  all  times  treat  him  like  a  human 
being.  As  our  own  best  efforts  are  inspired 
by  commendation  or  reward,  so  the  boy  is 
quickened  to  highest  endeavor  by  praise  and 
not  by  blame.  Rewards  are  more  effective 
incentives  to  excellence  than  demerits  or  pun- 
ishments. The  constant  repression  of  a 
child's  actions  by  prohibition  is  a  cruel  form 
of  punishment  which  drives  him  farther  and 
farther  out  of  the  range  of  the  parent's  in- 
fluence for  suggestive  helpfulness. 

"Do  this!"  is  more  effective  than  "Don't 
do  that!" 
v  116 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  SUGGESTIVE  METHOD  OF  TRAINING 

EVERY  parent  of  a  son  should  formu- 
late some  definite,  determinate  plan 
for  his  training,  and  this  can  be  done  even 
though  original  research  and  the  formation 
of  plans  deduced  therefrom  are  not  always 
possible  to  the  parent  whose  life  is  bulging 
with  other  activities  necessitated  by  our  hur- 
rying civilization.  Any  definite  plan  of 
training  is  better  than  no  plan,  inasmuch  as 
it  will  cause  us  to  think  and  to  use  our  best 
judgment  on  this  important  topic  and  so 
tend  to  a  clarification  of  preformed  vague 
or  inchoate  opinions. 

Would  it  were  possible  to  state  a  simple 
golden  rule  for  boy-training!    Unfortunate- 
117 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

ly  such  a  complex  subject  cannot  be  reduced 
to  fixed  rules  or  mechanical  formulas.  The 
complexity  of  the  problem  is  grounded  in 
the  complexity  of  life;  its  solution  is  found 
in  methods  as  variant  as  the  diverse  needs 
of  mind,  soul,  and  body.  The  author  has 
stressed  parental  responsibility  and  the  need 
of  parental  training  as  a  basic  preliminary 
to  solving  the  boy-problem.  The  far-flung 
necessity  for  parental  instruction  is  made  im- 
perative by  the  racial  habit,  of  Americans 
especially,  of  drifting  out  of  touch  with  their 
children  during  adolescence.  In  the  pre- 
adolescent  period — when  our  children  are 
childish — we  preserve  the  closest  intimacy 
and  companionship  by  unbending  our  ma- 
ture dignity,  at  least  in  the  privacy  of  home, 
to  a  degree  which  puts  us  in  perfect  accord 
with  their  natures.  Under  such  conditions 
we  are  the  recipients  of  their  confidences  and 
intimacies  which  they  give  freely,  naively 
118 


THE  SUGGESTIVE  METHOD 

and  trustfully.  In  return  for  the  gift  of  our 
love,  our  own  lives  are  rejuvenated  by  asso- 
ciation with  the  light,  joy,  and  laughter  of 
youth. 

But  the  arrival  of  puberty  marks  a  change 
in  our  attitude  toward  our  children  of  which 
we  are  not  wholly  conscious.  At  this  age  the 
boy  is  neither  man  nor  child,  but  part  of  both, 
and  we  become  impatient  with  the  idiosyn- 
crasies of  his  nature  and  conduct  which  con- 
stantly assert  themselves  at  this  period  of 
life.  Our  annoyance  at  the  manifestations 
of  his  psychic  changes,  which  is  caused  by 
our  failure  to  understand  them,  arouses  in 
him  the  suspicion  that  he  is  neither  loved  nor 
appreciated  and  he  drifts  farther  and  farther 
out  of  the  range  of  our  influence  until  he 
reaches  the  hinterland  from  which  little  tid- 
ings of  his  inner  self  ever  reach  us.  The 
realization  of  this  fact  comes  to  the  boy  much 
earlier  and  with  more  poignant  force  than 
119 


.YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

to  the  parent.  The  consciousness  of  his  isola- 
tion is  evidenced  by  his  secretiveness,  his 
opinion  that  he  is  not  understood  and  his  be- 
lief in  parental  lack  of  sympathy.  The 
former  relationship  of  chum  and  comrade 
has  been  superseded  by  an  attitude  of  un- 
responsiveness  or  even  hostility.  The  secret- 
iveness of  the  boy  toward  those  who  do  not 
have  his  confidence  is  only  equalled  by  his 
frankness  toward  the  adult  with  whom  he 
is  on  terms  of  intimate  companionship. 

How  many  fathers  take  the  time  to  tell 
a  story  to  their  sons  after  puberty?  Or  to 
explain  the  phenomena  of  the  business,  bank- 
ing, industrial,  or  mechanical  world?  The 
busy  parent  usually  esteems  himself  for- 
tunate if  he  can  escape  the  importunate  in- 
quiries of  his  offspring  concerning  the  facts 
of  the  man's  world;  and  the  boy,  seeking  the 
companionship  of  men  for  which  he  yearns 
during  adolescence,  is  led  to  the  society  of 
120 


THE  SUGGESTIVE  METHOD 

the  drunken  hostler  who  is  ever  ready  to 
regale  him  with  a  collection  of  stories  re- 
plete with  profanity  and  obscenity. 

American  children,  during  adolescence, 
are  reputed  to  be  the  most  ill-bred  children 
in  the  world.  The  apparently  lax  methods 
of  the  French  and  the  Japanese  as  well  as 
the  severe  discipline  of  English  and  German 
parents  are  both  attended  by  a  greater  de- 
gree of  filial  respect,  obedience,  and  rever- 
ence for  their  elders  than  is  exhibited  by  our 
own  children.  Americans  have  been  char- 
acterized as  bringing  up  their  children  by  a 
series  of  fits  and  starts,  which  accounts  for 
much  of  the  disrespect  shown  them  by  their 
children.  At  any  rate,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  we  have  no  settled,  definite  philosophy 
to  guide  us  in  this  important  function,  and 
the  lack  of  a  determinate  system  may  justly 
be  assigned  as  a  cause  for  such  indeterminate 
results.  The  delightful  camaraderie  between 
121 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

the  French  youth  and  his  father  is  conspicu- 
ous in  this  country  by  its  relatively  infre- 
quent occurrence.  Our  slap-bang,  haphaz- 
ard plans  of  boy-culture  produce  results  in 
conformity  with  the  methods  employed.  But 
whatever  may  be  the  system  used,  any  defi- 
nite, thoughtful,  continuous  policy  is  better 
than  no  policy  at  all.  The  author  is  of  the 
opinion  that  intimate  companionship  con- 
tinued through  adolescence,  combined  with 
a  median  course  between  French  laxity  and 
English  strictness,  will  conduce  to  virile 
character  and  manhood,  and  love  and  respect 
for  parents. 

Happy  is  the  man  for  whom  time  has  not 
rung  down  the  curtain  of  oblivion  on  the 
scenes  of  youth ;  for  only  in  this  state  of  men- 
tal attunement  is  he  able  to  retain  the  boy's 
point  of  view  which  is  an  indispensable 
requisite  to  chumship  and  comradeship  with 
his  son.  A  delightful  state  of  intimacy  and 
122 


THE  SUGGESTIVE  METHOD 

confidence  with  his  son  makes  it  possible  for 
the  father  to  guide  his  conduct  by  suggestion 
and    counsel    which    carry    a    weight    and 
potency  unattainable  under  other  conditions ; 
and  that  counsel  is  most  productive  of  re- 
sults, which  is  positive — not  negative — for 
the  reason  that  it  is  founded  on  sound  psy- 
chology.   The  evils  of  the  repressive  methocN 
of  training  find  their  antithesis  in  the  happy  \ 
results  of  the  suggestive  method  which  is 
constructive  in  principle.     Suggestion  is  in- 
formative, optimistic,  and  inspirational,  and    \ 
finds  quick  lodgment  in  the  inquiring  and     1 
acquisitive  mind.     As  negative  commands 
are  unwelcome  because  they  produce  mental     1 
hostility  and  will  combat,  so  constructive 
suggestions  are  welcomed  because  of  their 


friendly  helpfulness.  * 

Witness  how  enthusiastically  a  group  of 
boys  will  accept  the  suggestion  of  an  adult 
who  proposes  a  new  game,  sport,  manual 
123 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

activity,  or  work  along  the  lines  of  social  or 
civil  service !  A  patrol  of  Boy  Scouts,  under 
the  suggestion  of  their  Master,  provided 
food,  fuel,  and  clothing  for  three  destitute 
families  during  a  winter  of  unusual  severity, 
until  the  heads  of  these  families  had  recov- 
ered from  sickness  and  resumed  their  places 
as  breadwinners.  The  intensity  of  their  boy- 
ish enthusiasm  for  this  work  of  charity  drove 
from  their  minds  all  thought  of  the  pecca- 
dillos which,  to  a  greater  or  lesser  degree, 
occupy  the  minds  of  idle  youths.  The  idle 
brain  is  still  the  devil's  workshop* 

The  boy  hails  as  a  friend  and  companion 
the  adult  who  understands  his  needs  and 
who  points  out  to  him  the  clean  activities 
which  he  loves  and  for  which  he  is  blindly 
groping.  No  one  is  more  "open  to  sugges- 
tion" than  the  boy. 

One  winter's  day  a  gentleman  encountered 
a  lot  gang  who  had  captured  a  stray  cur, 
124 


THE  SUGGESTIVE  METHOD 

bound  him  to  a  post,  and  were  bombarding 
him  with  snow  balls  and  chunks  of  ice  as 
an  expression  of  their  desire  for  mental  and 
physical  excitement.  The  yelps  of  pain 
which  told  that  the  missiles  had  found  their 
mark  were  greeted  with  shouts  of  exulta- 
tion. Instead  of  reproving  them  for  their 
cruelty,  he  incited  their  curiosity  by  tactfully 
inquiring  if  they  had  a  mascot.  On  receiv- 
ing a  negative  answer,  he  suggested  that 
every  crowd  of  boys  ought  to  have  a  mascot 
and  then  began  to  discuss  the  fine  points  of 
the  cur — more  or  less  hidden  from  the  non- 
expert eye — and  finally  suggested  that  the 
dog  would  make  an  ideal  mascot,  provided 
the  boys  knew  how  to  take  proper  care  of 
an  animal  occupying  such  an  exalted  station. 
Spontaneous  yells  of  assent  elected  the  dog 
to  this  honor  and  then  the  crowd,  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  adult,  spent  the  remainder  of 
the  day  bringing  him  food  and  building  a 
125 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

kennel  which  was  copiously  furnished  with 
discarded  bed  coverings,  after  which,  on  their 
own  initiative,  they  combed  his  hair  and  man- 
icured his  claws  until  he  presented  the 
well-groomed  appearance  of  a  lady  of  fash- 
ion. Many  subsequent  hours  were  spent  in 
earning  pennies  with  which  they  purchased 
a  license  and  a  collar  on  which  was  a  plate 
engraved  with  the  name  "Rags"  which  had 
been  unanimously  conferred  on  him.  The 
quarrels  and  disputes  which  arose  over  their 
respective  rights  to  the  possession  of  the 
dog  were  settled,  at  the  suggestion  of  this 
same  gentleman,  by  the  organization  of  the 
gang  into  a  club  which  elected  officers  and 
adopted  by-laws,  the  president  of  which 
awarded  the  custody  of  the  dog  daily  in  turn 
to  each  member — beginning  with  himself. 
The  necessity  for  more  pets  to  occupy  their 
attention  resulted  in  the  addition  of  a  rab- 
bit, two  chickens,  a  guinea  pig  and  a  goat 
126 


THE  SUGGESTIVE  METHOD 

to  their  embryonic  menagerie.  Their  next 
step  was  the  giving  of  a  "show"  (admission 
one  cent)  in  which  the  menagerie  was  the 
chief  attraction,  closely  followed  in  popular 
favor  by  "Rags"  doing  tricks  which  the  gang 
had  taught  him.  Then  they  added  more 
fowls  to  their  collection  which  proved  to  be 
the  forerunner  of  a  successful  poultry  yard 
from  which  they  made  a  profit  by  selling 
eggs  and  chickens. 

A  boy  in  an  Iowa  city,  rejoicing  in  a 
superior  physique  but  lacking  the  brains  to 
use  it  wisely,  had  bullied,  beaten,  and  ter- 
rorized the  smaller  boys  of  his  acquaintance 
in  spite  of  parental  commands,  reproof,  and 
repeated  chastisements.  A  continuation  of 
his  brutality  finally  landed  him  in  the  Juve- 
nile Court,  the  judge  of  which  was  sufficient- 
ly versed  in  boy-psychology  to  attempt  the 
experiment  of  making  him  a  "boy-police- 
man" decorated  with  a  tin  star,  authorizing 
127 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

him  to  preserve  order  among  the  boys  of  his 
neighborhood  and  especially  charging  him 
with  the  duty  of  protecting  the  smaller  boys 
from  the  assaults  of  the  larger.  From  that 
time  forward,  the  bully  was  prepared  to 
"punch  the  head  off'n  any  feller  wot  licked 
a  kid/'  It  is  needless  to  say  that  there  were 
no  more  assaults  on  small  boys  in  that  local- 
ity. Suggestion  had  diverted  the  exercise 
of  his  physical  prowess  from  unlawful  into 
lawful  channels. 

James ,  age  15,  was  changed  from 

a  prodigal  to  a  thrifty  boy  through  a  plan 
for  saving  suggested  and  encouraged  by 
his  father  who  opened  a  bank  account 
in  his  son's  name  and  offered  to  add  a  dollar 
for  every  dollar  earned  by  his  son.  It  proved 
to  be  a  tremendous  incentive  to  industry  as 
well  as  to  thrift. 

The  foregoing  incidents  furnish  typical 
illustrations  of  the  application  of  the  sug- 
128 


THE  SUGGESTIVE  METHOD 

gestive  method  of  training  as  distinguished 
from  the  repressive  method;  and  it  may  be 
applied  either  to  the  individual  or  to  the 
group  with  equally  good  results.  The  men- 
tal and  physical  energy  ordinarily  expended 
in  various  forms  of  lawlessness  can  be  di- 
rected, unconsciously,  into  fields  of  economic 
and  ethical  value  by  the  application  of  suit- 
able suggestions. 

Negation  arouses  the  spirit  of  combat;  and 
obedience  under  these  conditions  tends  to 
inspire  a  feeling  of  surrender  and  defeat 
whose  influence  on  character  is  obviously 
prejudicial. 

A  father  once  said,  "I  have  never  com- 
manded my  son  not  to  do  a  thing.  Instead, 
I  have  suggested  that  I  would  prefer  him 
to  do  the  other."  In  this  way,  conflict  of 
wills  was  avoided  and  the  youth  was  re- 
quired to  make  a  voluntary  choice  between 
two  courses  in  which  the  father's  preference 
129 


\ 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

invariably  turned  the  balance  in  the  desired 
direction.  On  one  such  occasion  the  boy  re- 
plied, "Dad,  I  wish  you  would  tell  me  I 
cannot  do  it  and  then  I  would  go  and  do  it 
to  show  you  I  can;  but  when  you  tell  me 
that  it  would  hurt  you,  I  just  can't  do  it." 

The  prohibition  of  a  proposed  action 
arouses  all  the  resentment  of  thwarted  desire 
and  unfulfilled  attainment.  Such  conse- 
quences may  be  avoided  by  the  suggestion  of 
better  plans,  methods,  or  acts,  concurrent 
with  the  reasons  why  such  change  is  desir- 
able or  necessary.  The  substitution  of  other 
activities  or  another  course  of  conduct  fills 
the  void  made  by  denial  and  satisfies  his 
psychological  requirement  of  being  kept 
busy.  Every  normal  boy  is  a  safety-valve- 
less  steam  boiler,  stored  full  of  dynamic  en- 
ergy which  expends  itself  in  constant  action 
— usually  physical — and  failure  to  provide 
for  the  utilization  and  consumption  of  this 
130 


THE  SUGGESTIVE  METHOD 

energy  will  result  in  an  explosion  in  some 
form  of  delinquency. 

Cheerful,  helpful,  informative,  intelligent, 
and  inspirational  suggestion  is  the  boy's 
greatest  need  and  he  will  accept  it  willingly 
from  a  father  who  is  joined  to  him  by  ties 
of  sympathetic  comradeship  which  are  long 
enough  to  encompass  his  needs  within  their 
bonds. 


If  a  father's  influence  is  to  count  for  much, 
he  should  be  both  a  chum  and  a  big  brother 
to  his  son. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  HABIT  OF  FALSEHOOD 

THE  continued  reiteration  of  a  fantasy 
produces  an  impression  on  the  brain 
cells  akin  to  the  impression  produced  by  a 
fact.  The  fantasy  of  imagination  roams 
without  check  or  hindrance  by  childhood  un- 
til it  reaches  a  land  which  is  believed  to  be 
reality.  The  borderland  between  fiction  and 
fact  is  not  always  clearly  defined  and  the 
immature  mind  of  youth  generally  fails  to 
distinguish  the  line  where  the  one  ends  and 
the  other  begins.  Fantasy  is  as  real  to  child- 
hood as  reality. 

Who  cannot  recall  in  his  own  childhood 
an  event  which  illustrates  the  point?      I  was 
once  the  happy  owner  of  a  snare  drum  which 
132 


THE  HABIT  OF  FALSEHOOD 

filled  a  large  place  in  my  life.  But  I  re- 
peatedly and  proudly  claimed  the  ownership 
of  two  drums — a  bass  as  well  as  a  snare 
drum.  My  claim  to  the  possession  of  a  bass 
drum  was  founded  on  the  discovery  of  a 
board  in  the  wall  of  the  barn,  which,  when 
struck  with  the  fist,  gave  forth  a  sound  which 
my  childish  fancy  decided  could  be  only  the 
boom  of  a  bass  drum.  While  a  companion 
beat  this  sounding  board  with  his  fist,  I 
played  the  snare  drum  in  unison.  I  never 
realized  that  I  was  lying  when  I  said  I  owned 
two  drums.  I  was  not.  The  sounding  board 
was  as  real  a  drum  to  the  mind  of  my  child- 
hood as  it  is  unreal  to  the  mind  of  my  ma- 
turity. 

A  little  lad  rushed  into  his  mother's  room 
exclaiming,  "Mamma,  a  hundred  big  Indians 
tried  to  catch  me.  I  shot  'em.  I  killed  two 
or  free."  He  was  arrayed  in  an  Indian  suit, 
with  a  toy  bow  and  arrows.  The  back  yard 
133 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

was  the  battle  field  which  his  imagination 
filled  with  blood-thirsty  warriors  seeking  his 
scalp.  His  vivid  imagination  was  running 
riot.  It  made  every  bush  and  tree  an 
aboriginal.  Shooting  an  arrow  into  a  bush 
he  shouted,  "I  gotcha,  you  bad  Indian!  I 
killed  ye  dead!"  until  his  victory  was  com- 
plete and  he  ran  to  share  his  conquest  with 
his  mother. 

Painters,  while  at  work  on  a  residence, 
climbed  up  and  down  a  tall  ladder  extend- 
ing to  the  roof.  When  the  owner  of  the  house 
returned  home  from  business  he  was  met  by 
his  five-year-old  son  who,  pointing  to  the 
ladder,  said  proudly,  "Papa,  I  climbed  to 
the  top  of  that  ladder  today."  It  was  phys- 
ically impossible  for  a  child  of  such  tender 
years  to  accomplish  this  feat.  His  statement 
was  not  true  but  the  child  had  not  lied.  With 
intense  admiration  he  had  watched  the  paint- 
ers climb  the  ladder  until  in  boyish  fancy 
134 


THE  HABIT  OF  FALSEHOOD 

he  himself  was  playing  this  heroic  and  dan- 
gerous role.  All  day  long  he  had  marveled 
at  the  feat  in  which  he  pictured  himself  play- 
ing the  principal  part,  until  his  obsession 
became  a  conviction.  The  actual  facts  pho- 
tographed themselves  in  a  blur  on  the  poor 
film  of  his  brain,  already  impressed  with 
the  clear-cut  picture  of  his  imagination,  un- 
til the  composite  result  was  a  mental  image 
in  which  fancy  predominated.  If  a  lie  is 
the  voluntary  and  conscious  perversion  of 
the  truth,  he  did  not  lie.  An  untruth  is  a 
misstatement  of  fact  due  to  ignorance  or 
misconception.  He  was  not  conscious  of  a 
misstatement  of  fact  because  he  stated  the 
facts  as  his  mental  processes  recalled  them. 
His  inability  to  distinguish  between  the  real 
and  the  unreal  resulted  in  an  error  for  which 
he  was  not  morally  responsible.  He  related 
the  incident  as  a  fact  because  his  brain,  pow- 
erfully impressed  by  the  fancy,  believed  it 
135 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

to  be  a  fact;  therefore  the  boy  told  it  as  a 
fact. 

Fancy  is  a  fairy,  that  can  hear, 
Ever,  the  melody  of  nature's  voice, 
And  see  all  lovely  visions  that  she  will. 

— FRANCES  S.  OSGOOD. 

When  his  mental  development  advances 
to  a  stage  where  he  can  differentiate  clearly 
between  fact  and  fancy;  when  the  maturity 
of  his  mind  enables  him  to  draw  clearer  dis- 
tinction between  the  real  and  the  unreal, 
when,  in  a  word,  imagination  is  superseded 
by  reason,  then  such  errors  will  be  impossible. 
His  mistake  was  mental — not  moral.  There- 
fore, he  was  not  culpable.  I  knew  a  loving 
mother  who  washed  out  her  child's  mouth 
with  soap  as  punishment  for  a  similar  "lie." 
No  graver  injustice  can  be  perpetrated  by 
a  parent  than  punishment  for  such  an  al- 
leged offense.  It  should  be  recognized  and 
accepted  as  an  incident  which  is  natural  to 
136 


THE  HABIT  OF  FALSEHOOD 

mental  immaturity.  The  thought  is  ex- 
pressed by  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall  in  these 
words:  "Sometimes  their  fancy  is  almost  a 
visualization  and  develops  a  kind  of  mythopic 
faculty  which  spins  clever  yarns  and  sug- 
gests a  sense,  quite  as  pregnant  as  Frosch- 
mer  asserts  of  all  mental  activity  and  of  all 
universe  itself,  that  all  their  life  is  imagina- 
tion." But  I  hear  a  mother,  holding  up  her 
hands  in  horror,  exclaiming,  "I  cannot  let 
my  child  prevaricate!  I  must  punish  him 
or  the  habit  will  become  fixed." 

Her  solicitude  for  the  child's  moral  wel- 
fare is  as  commendable  as  it  is  necessary  and 
her  desire  to  prevent  such  incidents  from 
becoming  a  habit  is  praiseworthy.  Her 
methods,  only,  are  wrong.  Instead  of  pun- 
ishment the  child  is  entitled  to  instruction 
which  will  develop  his  mentality  until  he  can 
distinguish  between  fact  and  fancy.  With 
growth  in  mental  stature  comes  coordination 
137 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

of  ideas  and  a  clearer  discernment  of  the  line 
of  demarcation  between  the  real  and  the  un- 
real, and  when  the  child  becomes  mentally 
able  to  distinguish  between  the  two,  such 
misstatements  of  fact  will  be  at  an  end. 
Falsehood  in  young  children  has  been  char- 
acterized by  Dr.  Hall  as  "a  new  mental 
combination  independent  of  experience." 

In  rare  cases  this  mental  fog  continues, 
with  diminishing  intensity,  through  matur- 
ity. Everyone  knows  of  the  man  who  told 
a  story  so  often  that  he  himself  finally  be- 
lieved it.  It  chiefly  manifests  itself  in  adults 
in  exaggeration  of  the  qualities,  abilities,  or 
prowess  of  the  teller.  Witness  the  fisher- 
man of  your  acquaintance  whose  account  of 
the  weight  and  size  of  his  biggest  fish  grows 
with  each  succeeding  recital.  He  does  not 
mean  to  lie.  He  thinks  he  is  telling  the  truth. 
In  the  beginning  he  justified  his  exaggera- 
tion of  weight  and  size  by  doubting  the  ac- 
138 


THE  HABIT  OF  FALSEHOOD 

curacy  of  the  scale  and  rule  by  which  he 
weighed  and  measured  the  fish.  The  con- 
tinued repetition  of  his  yarn  produced  an 
impression  on  his  brain  closely  resembling 
actuality.  He  deceived  himself.  Pride  in 
his  piscatorial  prowess  made  deception  easy. 
His  error  was  partly  mental,  partly  moral, 
the  latter  being  in  direct  ratio  to  the  clarity 
of  his  mental  processes.  It  is  a  tremendous 
tribute  to  the  mental  stability  and  moral  dis- 
cernment of  a  fisherman  to  be  able  to  re- 
frain, in  after  years,  from  overstating  the 
weight  of  his  biggest  fish. 

We  now  consider  another  phase  of  mis- 
statement  of  fact — the  falsehood  of  the  older 
boy.  At  the  age  of  six  or  seven  the  mental 
fog  begins  to  clear.  He  sees  things  in  a 
truer,  brighter  light.  The  relationship  of 
facts  to  each  other  becomes  more  and  more 
cognizable.  His  moral  faculties  are  emerg- 
ing from  a  chaos  of  mental  impressions. 
139 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

This  age,  approximately,  marks  the  birth  of 
moral  consciousness.  His  conception  of  right 
and  wrong  takes  form  and  begins  its  process 
of  development.  At  this  period  he  begins 
to  distinguish  between  fact  and  fancy  and 
as  his  mental  processes  become  clarified  by 
increasing  maturity,  so  in  a  corresponding 
degree  his  confusion  of  the  unreal  with  the 
real  disappears.  Mentality  begins  to  domi- 
nate imagination. 

What  of  the  boy,  under  these  conditions, 
who  tells  a  lie?  An  inquiry  into  the  motives 
which  prompt  his  falsehoods  may  clarify  the 
problem  and  afford  a  solution.  The  study 
of  a  large  number  of  untruthful  boys  has  de- 
veloped the  fact  that  their  motives  for  men- 
dacity are  few  and  are  usually  comprehended 
under  one  class — the  desire  to  escape  punish- 
ment for  an  offense.  Other  and  lesser  in- 
centives to  lying  are  envy,  boasting,  revenge, 
jealousy,  and  imitation,  but  none  of  these  is 
140 


THE  HABIT  OF  FALSEHOOD 

as  potent  as  the  fear  of  a  reprimand,  a  scold- 
ing, or  corporal  punishment. 

A  scolding  and  a  whipping  are  both  pain- 
ful— one  in  mind,  the  other  in  body.  It  is 
natural  for  one  to  seek  to  avoid  pain  and 
suffering.  It  is  equally  certain  that  punish- 
ment must  inevitably  follow  the  violation  of 
law — whether  parental  law,  physical  law,  or 
the  law  of  the  land.  Loading  the  stomach 
with  indigestible  food  brings  its  own  punish- 
ment in  the  disturbance  of  the  bodily 
functions.  The  commission  of  a  felony 
necessitates  a  term  of  imprisonment  after 
conviction;  and  with  equal  certainty 
punishment  should  follow  the  violation  of 
parental  law.  But  if  that  punishment  is 
unnecessarily  severe  or  if  it  violates  the 
boy's  sense  of  fairness  and  justice,  he 
will  seek  to  avoid  it  by  the  most  effective 
weapon  of  defense  at  hand — falsehood. 
Nothing  is  more  conducive  to  deceit  than 
141 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

frequent  scoldings  or  floggings  for  trivial 
offenses,  and  the  elimination  of  corporal 
and  unduly  severe  mental  punishments 
will  remove  the  chief  incentive  to  falsehood. 
The  remedy  for  the  falsehoods  which  have 
their  origin  in  the  lesser  provocatives  re- 
ferred to  above  is  moral  suasion,  a  hackneyed 
phrase  often  used  and  little  understood. 
Literally  it  implies  the  persuasive  influence 
of  moral  teaching.  In  its  broader  aspect 
and  as  a  cure  for  lying,  it  comprehends  the 
culture  of  moral  consciousness;  training  of 
tHe  will;  fixation  of  the  habit  of  obedience; 
teaching  the  evil  results  which  always  follow 
falsehood;  the  development  of  mentality 
(without  which  there  can  be  no  comprehen- 
sion of  moral  concepts) ;  and  the  influence 
of  parental  example  in  the  exact  and  scrup- 
ulous adherence  to  truth.  All  these  combined 
produce  the  composite  result  called  moral 
suasion,  which  is  generally  effective. 
142 


CHAPTER  X 

CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT 

AMONG  the  corrective  measures  used 
in  child  training  since  time  im- 
memorial, corporal  punishment  occupies  a 
large  and  conspicuous  place.  While  such 
punishment  is,  at  present,  on  the  decline, 
still  it  is  sufficiently  widespread  and  frequent 
in  its  application  to  warrant  a  discussion  of 
its  effectiveness  in  accomplishng  the  ends 
desired,  as  well  as  a  word  concerning  its 

moral  effect  on  the  child. 

\- 

plies  tne  inability  oi  tne  parent  to  govern 
the  child  without  it.  It  must  be  predicated 
on  the  belief  of  the  parent  in  its  superior 
merits,  which  causes  him  to  submerge  its 

143 

t 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

humanitarian  aspects  beneath  its  supposedly 
utilitarian  effectiveness,  or  because  he  is  un- 
acquainted with  other  methods.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  conceive  a  parent  who  would 
beat  a  child  from  personal  choice  when  there 
were  other  corrective  methods  at  hand  which 

\  he  believed  to  be  of  equal  efficiency. 

The  author  recalls  a  man  of  high  stand- 
ing in  the  financial  world — successful  in  busi- 
ness, but  cold,  stern,  austere  and  puritanical 
in  his  personal  code,  who  thrashed  his  son, 
from  his  tenth  to  his  fifteenth  year,  frequent- 
ly as  often  as  once  a  week.  Then  the  boy 
ran  away  from  home  to  escape  the  tyranny 
and  is  now  a  wanderer  over  the  earth,  his 

'heart  filled  with  bitter  hatred  toward  his 
father,  while  the  latter  deems  himself  a  much 
abused  parent  and  his  son  an  ungrateful  and 
wayward  boy.  At  no  time  during  the  many 
hundred  beatings  which  he  administered  did 
it  occur  to  him  that  bodily  punishment  was 
144 


CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT 

not  a  salutary  corrective;  he  failed  to  realize 
the  futility  of  a  means  which  did  not  accom- 
plish the  desired  results.  Had  an  analogous 
problem  arisen  in  his  business,  he  would 
quickly  have  discarded  any  plan  which  so 
thoroughly  demonstrated  its  uselessness. 
This  man  had  a  profound  and  earnest  desire 
to  rear  his  son  to  perfect  manhood.  He 
adopted  the  method  which  seemed  to  him  best 
designed  to  accomplish  that  result.  Today 
he  is  a  broken-hearted  man  grieving  over  his 
lost  son.  Again  we  hark  back  to  the  way- 
ward parent.  "Fathers,  provoke  not  your 
children  to  anger  lest  they  be  discouraged." 
Col.  3:21. 

The  average  child  does  not  rebel  againsFX 
authority  but  only  against  authority  which 
he  thinks  is  unjustly  or  harshly  exercised. 
He  invariably  revolts  against  corporal  pun- 
ishment because  he  believes  any  degree  of 
it  to  be  excessive.  From  the  boy's  point  of 
145 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

view  he  is  a  Lilliputian  whom  the  Gargan- 
tuan parent  abuses  because  of  greater  brute 
strength.  A  fourteen-year-old  boy  who  was 
being  beaten  by  his  father  for  failure  to  per- 
form some  chore  shouted  in  his  face,  "You 
wouldn't  dare  do  that  if  I  was  as  big  as 
you."  And  the  boy  spoke  the  truth.  The 
father  who  is  addicted  to  the  corporal  form 
of  punishment  is  deterred,  when  his  son 
approaches  maturity,  as  much  by  fear  of 
being  vanquished  in  the  contest  as  by  a  reali- 
zation of  its  futility  as  a  corrective  of  the 
later  adolescent. 

:This  form  of  punishment  is  commonly 
adopted  to  "break  the  will"  of  the  disobedi- 
ent and  rebellious  boy.  If  breaking  the  will 
of  the  boy  means  making  it  conform  to  that 
of  the  physically  stronger  father,  the  at- 
tempt is  as  ineffective  as  it  is  brutal,  for 
acquiescence  under  such  circumstances  never 
is  evidence  of  mental  consent.  Servile  sub- 
146 


CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT 

jection  of  will  is  out  of  harmony  with  that 
growth  of  will-power  which  is  necessary  to 
the  ideal  development  of  the  adolescent. 

Persistent,  unjust,  or  excessive  punish- 
ments, either  of  body  or  mind,  furnish  a 
powerful  incentive  for  the  boy  to  invoke  his 
chief  means  of  defense  against  superior  force 
— evasion  and  prevarication.  Such  conduct 
is  guaranteed  to  produce  a  youthful  Mun- 
chausen. 

What  are  a  boy's  means  of  defense  against 
a  beating  which  he  regards,  either  rightly  or 
wrongly,  as  excessive  or  brutal?  He  has 
only  two — flight  and  falsehod.  He  knows 
that  he  is  incapable  of  matching  physical 
strength  with  his  parent.  This  knowledge, 
combined  with  whatever  love  for  the  parent 
has  not  been  extinguished,  prevents  a  con- 
test of  strength  which  the  child  realizes 
would  be  futile.  Flight  is  frequently  out  of 
the  question  because  of  the  boy's  dependency 
147 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

and  his  inability  to  earn  his  own  living.  His 
last  means  of  defense  is  falsehood,  the  use 
of  which  he  justifies  as  his  only  method  of 
escape  from  unwarranted  or  excessive  pun- 
ishment. Fully  conscious  of  the  wrong  of 
lying  he  considers  it  the  lesser  of  the  two 
evils. 

:  Similar  in  its  effect  is  the  nagging  of  chil- 
dren, in  which  mothers  are  more  prone  to  in- 
dulge than  fathers.  Exhibitions  of  constant 
scolding,  faultfinding,  and  querulous  tem- 
per, interpersed  with  boxing  of  ears,  smact- 
ing  of  cheeks,  and  slapping  of  hands,  all  tend 
to  thwart  the  child's  mental  and  moral 
growth  and  contribute  to  the  making  of  a 
wayward  son.  Such  punishment  is  largely 
mental  but  none  the  less  reprehensible  be- 
cause it  lacks  the  element  of  physical  pain. 
To  slap  a  child's  hand  as  a  correctional  meas- 
ure, with  the  sharp  word  of  reproof  which 
accompanies  it,  gives  the  child  a  mental  in- 
148 


CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT 

stead  of  a  physical  shock ;  a  slap  of  the  same 
degree  given  in  a  playful  mood  will  cause 
him  to  laugh.  When  a  boy,  especially  in 
the  adolescent  period,  begins  to  complain 
of  the  injustice  of  constant  nagging,  scold- 
ing, and  corporal  punishment,  it  is  a  danger 
signal  which  should  cause  the  parent  to  stop, 
look,  and  listen.  Such  conduct  on  the  part 
of  the  parent  alienates  the  love  and  sympathy 
of  the  child,  conduces  to  lying,  secretiveness 
and  evasion,  and  is  productive  of  truancy 
and  the  development  of  the  wanderlust.  Its 
psychological  effect  on  the  parent  is  the  loss] 
of  self-respect  which  is  the  inevitable  ac-f 
companiment  of  punitive  injustice. 

The  punitive  theory  of  the  correction  of > 
youthful  offenses  is  archaic  and  should  be 
relegated  to  the  Paleolithic  era  from  whence 
it  sprang.  To  mete  out  punishment  as  such 
is  vengeance  pure  and  simple;  an  eye- 
for-an-eye-and-a-tooth-for-a-tooth  policy 
149 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

r-which  has  no  place  in  modern  child-culture. 
With  our  present-day  scientific  knowledge 
of  the  boy,  as  distinguished  from  our  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  him  in  the  past,  we 
recognize  the  trend  of  tendencies  and  under- 
stand the  portent  of  symptoms  which  for- 
merly were  either  unnoticed  or  disregarded. 
We  have  brought  minute  investigation, 
analysis,  and  cold  logic  into  the  solution  of 
his  problems  over  which  we  were  wont  to 
blunder.  We  have  made  no  greater  blun- 
ders in  the  past  than  those  we  have  com- 
mitted in  connection  with  the  corrective 
measures  which  it  has  been  the  custom  of 
certain  parents  to  employ.  The  necessity 
for  physical  punishment  has  been  superseded 
by  persuasive  methods  based  on  a  more  ac- 
curate understanding  of  the  boy's  mental 
and  moral  processes  and  his  impulses  for 
good  and  bad. 

\  Love,  sympathy,  and  justice  beget  loyalty 

150 


CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT 

where  fear  fails.  Moral  suasion,  mental  de-  \ 
velopment,  the  cultivation  of  will  power,  the 
appeal  to  reason,  the  deprivation  of  liber- 
ties and  privileges,  rewards  for  merit,  the 
exhibition  of  love,  insight  and  sympathy, 
the  use  of  tact  and  the  honor  system,  all 
are  effective  substitutes  for  physical  chas- 
tisement. 

The  preponderating  weight  of  authority 
among  sociologists  and  penologists  supports 
the  view  that  the  attitude  of  the  parent  to- 
ward his  filial  offender  and  of  the  state  to- 
ward the  adult  misdemeanant  should  be  on 
the  one  hand  formatory  and  on  the  other 
reformatory — but  never  punitory. 

The  desire  to  avoid  punishment  which  the 
prospective  recipient  regards  as  unjust, 
whether  rightly  or  wrongly  does  not  mat- 
ter, results  in  the  concoction  of  many  in- 
genious stories  and  schemes.  Again  the 
author  draws  on  his  own  boyhood  experience 
151 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

for  an  illustration.  At  the  age  of  nine 
I  was  threatened  by  my  mother  with  a  severe 
switching  for  an  offense  the  nature  of  which 
has  long  since  been  forgotten.  The  timely 
arrival  of  callers  postponed  the  dreaded 
event  and  afforded  me  ample  time  for  re- 
flection. The  anticipatory  torture  which  I 
suffered  during  the  hour  preceding  their  de- 
parture was  greater  punishment  than  the 
actuality. 

My  mental  processes  during  that  hour 
were  these:  "I  didn't  do  anything  very 
bad.  I  don't  deserve  a  whipping  for  it.  I 
am  sorry  for  what  I  have  done  and  won't  do 
it  again.  It's  unfair  to  whip  me  for  such 
a  little  thing.  How  can  I  escape  this  un- 
just licking?"  At  last,  after  long  and  la- 
bored mental  effort,  I  evolved  a  scheme 
which  to  my  youthful  mind  seemed  the  last 
word  in  ingenuity  and  effectiveness ;  it  would 
appeal  to  her  pity  and  give  her  an  object 
152 


CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT 

lesson  she  would  never  forget.  My  plan 
was  to  obtain  some  oatmeal  from  the  pantry, 
chew  it  until  my  mouth  was  filled  with  froth 
and  saliva  and  at  the  first  blow  of  punish- 
ment I  would  fall  to  the  floor  in  simulation 
of  unconsciousness,  frothing  at  the  mouth. 

These  alarming  physical  symptoms  were 
designed  to  touch  the  wellsprings  of  pity  in 
my  mother's  heart  and  I  would  thus  escape 
this  threatened  chastisement,  as  well  as  fu- 
ture ones.  At  last  the  callers  departed  and 
the  hour  of  my  doom  arrived.  She  cut  two 
switches  from  a  peach  tree  and  entered  the 
spareroom — that  chamber  of  horrors — and  I 
followed  reluctantly  with  halting  steps. 

When  the  first  blow  fell,  my  instinctive 
and  unconscious  activity  in  endeavoring  to 
avoid  it  caused  it  to  strike  my  ear  instead 
of  my  back  at  which  it  was  aimed.  "The 
best  laid  plans  of  mice  and  men  gang  aft 
agley."  The  lusty  yell  of  pain  which  fol- 
153 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

lowed  the  contact  of  the  switch  with  my 
ear  caused  me  to  eject  the  oatmeal;  and  with 
succeeding  yells  vanished  all  recollection  of 
my  carefully  laid  plans  for  pseudo-fainting. 

Boys  frequently  show  great  power  of  in- 
vention in  minimizing  or  evading  punish- 
ment about  to  be  inflicted.  One  boy  pads 
the  seat  of  his  trousers  to  mitigate  the  or- 
deal, where  the  anticipated  weapon  is  the 
slipper;  another  puts  on  three  undershirts 
where  the  customary  instrument  of  torture 
is  the  switch  or  rod.  Still  another,  suffering 
the  indignity  of  being  compelled  to  cut  his 
own  switches,  has  been  known  to  exceed  his 
instructions  and  cut  the  castigatory  branch 
half  way  through  in  many  places. 

The  spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child  pol- 
icy has  lost  its  significance  in  these  latter 
days.  The  rod  is  the  emblem  of  parental 
ignorance  and  incapacity.  To  beat  a  de- 
fenseless child  is  proof  of  lack  of  ability 
154 


CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT 

to  govern  it  through  moral  forces.  It  is  a 
humiliating  admission  that  one  is  not  quali- 
fied for  his  job  as  parent.  The  confirmed 
user  of  the  rod  is  either  the  parent  whose 
neglect  of  training  or  wrong  methods  of 
training  have  already  produced  delinquency 
in  his  offspring,  or  the  parent  who  believes 
that  a  liberal  application  of  the  birch  will 
atone  for  his  ignorance  on  the  subject  of 
boy-training.  To  all  other  parents  the  re- 
sort to  the  rod  is  as  unnecessary  as  it  is  ab- 
horrent. 

The  final  question  remains:  Should  the 
rod  ever  be  used,  and,  if  so,  under  what  cir- 
cumstances? When  lack  of  training  or  poor 
training  has  produced  delinquency  in  the 
boy  and  all  other  corrective  measures  have 
failed — as  they  usually  will  fail  when  ap- 
plied too  late — then  corporal  punishment, 
if  not  carried  to  the  degree  of  brutality,  may 
be  attempted  as  a  last  resort  before  confine- 
155 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

/    ment  in  the  reform  school  or  house  of  de- 

V  tention. 

I  have  profound  pity  for  the  fathers  who 
expend  less  gray  matter  in  the  training  of 
their  sons  than  they  do  in  the  training  of 
their  hunting  dogs.  Give  each  the  same 
thoughtful,  intelligent,  patient  training  and 
the  boy  will  surpass  the  dog  in  docility, 
obedience,  and  understanding.  With  better 
knowledge  of  the  boy  and  his  psychology, 
and  with  better  trained  parents,  the  neces- 
sity for  the  use  of  the  rod  has  disappeared. 

"Train  up  a  child  in  the  way  he  should 
go  and  when  he  is  old  he  will  not  depart 
from  it."  Prov.  22:6. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  CIGARETTE  HABIT 

THE  widespread  use  of  tobacco  has 
given  rise  to  an  equally  wide  discus- 
sion as  to  its  effects  on  the  human  organism. 
Medical  men  are  divided  into  hostile  camps 
by  their  diversity  of  opinion  as  to  the  effects 
of  nicotine  on  the  adult.  The  subject  has 
engaged  the  attention  of  reformers,  edu- 
cators, physical  directors,  scientists  and 
physicians  for  many  generations.  Without 
attempting  an  exhaustive  discussion  of  the 
subject,  the  author  quotes  the  following  from 
Dr.  Clouston,  an  eminent  English  physician, 
as  to  the  effect  of  tobacco  upon  the  adult 
male: 

"The  use  of  tobacco  has  become  the  rule 
157 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

rather  than  the  exception  among  the  grown 
men  of  Europe  and  America  and  of  some 
parts  of  Asia.  If  its  use  is  restricted  to 
full-grown  men,  if  only  good  tobacco  is  used, 
not  of  too  great  strength,  and  if  it  is  not 
used  to  excess,  then  there  are  no  scientific 
proofs  that  it  has  any  injurious  effects,  if 
there  is  no  idiosyncrasy  against  it.  Speak- 
ing generally,  it  exercises  a  soothing  influ- 
ence when  the  nervous  system  is  in  any  way 
irritable.  It  tends  to  calm  and  continuous 
thinking,  and  in  many  men  promotes  the 
digestion  of  food.  To  those  good  results 
there  are,  however,  exceptions.  It  some- 
times sets  up  a  very  strong  desire  for  its  ex- 
cessive use ;  this  often  passing  into  a  morbid 
craving  which  leads  to  excess  and  hurt.  Used 
in  such  excessive  quantity  tobacco  acts  in- 
juriously on  the  heart,  weakens  digestion, 
and  causes  congestion  of  the  throat  as  well 
as  hindering  mental  action.  In  many  people 
158 


THE  CIGARETTE  HABIT 

its  use  tends  towards  a  desire  for  alcohol 
as  well.  I  have  repeatedly  seen  persons  of  a 
nervous  temperament  where  the  two  excesses 
in  tobacco  and  alcohol  were  linked  together. 
Tobacco,  properly  used,  may,  in  some  cases, 
undoubtedly  be  made  a  mental  hygienic." 
Notwithstanding  the  insufficient  scientific 
data  available  as  to  the  results  of  nicotine 
on  mature  men,  there  is  a  strong  belief  on 
the  part  of  numerous  physicians  and  others 
that  its  effect  is  deleterious.  There  is  no 
diversity  of  opinion,  however,  as  to  the  in- 
jury wrought  by  nicotine  on  the  morals, 
mind,  and  body  of  the  adolescent  boy.  Au- 
thorities who  have  given  the  subject  ex- 
haustive investigation  and  careful  thought 
are  unanimous  in  their  conclusions  that  the 
use  of  tobacco  in  any  form  before  maturity 
is  injurious.  Physical  deterioration  as  a  re- 
sult of  tobacco  and  especially  of  cigarettes 
has  been  conclusively  demonstrated  by  meas- 
159 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

urements  and  tests  of  large  numbers  of 
young  men  in  colleges,  which  show  beyond 
question  that  physical  growth  is  stunted; 
lung  capacity,  without  which  an  athlete  can- 
not achieve  distinction,  is  lessened;  the  ner- 
vous system  is  irritated  and  the  heart  ac- 
tion is  depressed.  The  lungs  are  rendered 
susceptible  to  pulmonary  and  tubercular  in- 
fection and  the  mental  development  of  the 
boy  receives  a  serious  check.  Such  physical 
and  mental  influences  cannot  fail  in  produc- 
ing moral  defects  as  well. 

Dr.  George  L.  Meylan  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity has  compiled  some  interesting  data 
from  his  observations  of  a  large  number  of 
college  students  covering  the  three  and  one- 
half  or  four  years  of  their  undergraduate 
life  at  age  approximately  of  seventeen  to 
twenty  at  entrance  and  twenty-one  to 
twenty-four  at  graduation.  The  follow- 
ing instructive  table  prepared  by  him 
160 


THE  CIGARETTE  HABIT 

shows  the  age  when  smokers  acquired  the 
habit : 


Age         |  7  |  8  |  9  |10|11|12|18|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21 


Number  |l|0|0|g|0|2|0  [11|11|18|80|23|16|  0  | 


It  will  be  observed  that  the  largest  num- 
ber of  boys  contracted  the  habit  at  age  seven- 
teen, with  ages  sixteen  and  eighteen  next  in 
point  of  numbers.  Few  boys  of  the  one 
hundred  and  fifteen  observed  in  the  above 
table  began  the  habit  before  the  fourteenth 
year,  the  age  near  which  adolescence  begins. 
Dr.  Meylan  reached  the  following  conclu- 
sions based  on  many  years  of  medical  ex- 
amination of  boys  and  young  men  and  his 
experience  in  teaching  hygiene: 

"1.  All  scientists  are  agreed  that  the  use 
of  tobacco  by  adolescents  is  injurious; 
parents,  teachers,  and  physicians  should 
strive  earnestly  to  warn  youths  against  its 
use. 

"2.  There  is  no  scientific  evidence  that  the 
161 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

moderate  use  of  tobacco  by  healthy  mature 
men  produces  any  beneficial  or  injurious 
physical  effects  that  can  be  measured. 

"3.  There  is  an  abundance  of  evidence 
that  tobacco  produces  injurious  effects  on 
(a)  certain  individuals  suffering  from  vari- 
ous nervous  affections;  (b)  persons  with  an 
idiosyncrasy  against  tobacco;  (c)  all  per- 
sons who  use  it  excessively. 

"4.  It  has  been  shown  conclusively  in  this 
study  and  also  by  Mr.  Clarke  that  the  use 
of  tobacco  by  college  students  is  closely  as- 
sociated with  idleness,  lack  of  ambition,  lack 
of  application  and  low  scholarship." 

Dr.  Jay  W.  Seaver  of  Yale  University 
has  expressed  the  following  opinion  as  the 
result  of  his  examination  of  thousands  of 
university  students : 

"The  effect  of  nicotine  on  the  growth  is 
very  measurable,  and  the  following  figures 
are  presented  as  a  fairly  satisfactory  demon- 
162 


THE  CIGARETTE  HABIT 

stration  of  the  extent  of  the  interference  with 
growth  that  may  be  expected  in  boys  from 
sixteen  to  twenty-five  years  of  age,  when 
they  are  believed  to  have  reached  full  ma- 
turity. For  purposes  of  comparison  the  men 
composing  a  class  in  Yale  have  been  divided 
into  three  groups.  The  first  is  made  up  of 
those  who  do  not  use  tobacco  in  any  form; 
the  second  consists  of  those  who  have  used 
tobacco  for  at  least  a  year  of  the  college 
course;  the  third  group  includes  the  irregu- 
lar users.  A  compilation  of  the  anthropo- 
metric  data  on  this  basis  shows  that  during 
the  period  of  undergraduate  life,  which  is 
essentially  three  and  a  half  years,  the  first 
group  grows  in  weight  10.4  per  cent,  more 
than  the  second,  and  6.6  per  cent,  more  than 
the  third;  in  girth  of  chest  the  first  group 
grows  26.7  per  cent,  more  than  the  second, 
and  23  per  cent,  more  than  the  third ;  in  ca- 
pacity of  lungs  the  first  group  gains  77.5 
163 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

per  cent,  more  than  the  second,  and  49.5  per 
cent,  more  than  the  third." 

The  figures  quoted  above  furnish  a  power- 
ful and  convincing  argument  against  the 
use  of  tobacco  in  any  form  by  the  person 
who  has  not  attained  maturity.  The  cigar- 
ette is  generally  considered  the  most  per- 
nicious form  in  which  tobacco  can  be  used 
and  this  is  the  form  in  which  boys  generally 
begin  its  use.  Both  before  and  after  puberty 
the  boy  is  imitative  of  his  elders.  "The  boy 
apes  the  man"  and  the  desire  to  appear 
"manly"  in  the  eyes  of  his  companions  is  one 
of  the  strongest  incentives  to  acquire  the 
habit.  As  smoking  is  common  among  men, 
he  seeks  to  acquire  this  evidence  of  mascu- 
linity by  adopting  its  semblance.  It  pos- 
sesses an  insidious  attraction  in  its  daintiness 
and  apparent  harmlessness.  The  phenome- 
non of  combustion,  the  ascending  ribbon  of 
smoke  which  vanishes  to  nothingness,  the  co- 
164 


THE  CIGARETTE  HABIT 

hesiveness  of  the  ash,  the  experiment  of 
blowing  smoke  rings  in  the  air  and  the  curi- 
osity to  learn  the  effect  of  smoking  on  the 
individual,  all  are  powerful  incitements  to 
the  inquisitive  mind  of  a  boy.  The  cigarette 
habit  is  usually  contracted  during  the  period 
of  adolescence,  or  even  earlier,  when  the 
organs,  glands,  tissues,  and  muscles  of  his 
body  are  in  a  formative  stage  of  develop- 
ment. It  requires  no  corroboration  from 
medical  experts  to  convince  the  man  of  aver- 
age intelligence  that  such  a  powerful  nar- 
cotic as  nicotine  cannot  be  beneficial  to 
growth  under  these  conditions.  Common 
sense  as  well  as  expert  opinion  join  in  con- 
demning the  nicotine  drug  habit  of  children. 
You  will  find  nicotine  classified  in  phar- 
macopoeias as  a  drug  whose  effects  are  some- 
what similar  to  those  of  opium  and  morphine. 
From  3  to  8  per  cent,  of  tobacco  is  com- 
posed of  nicotine,  of  which  50  to  60  per  cent. 
165 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

is  inhaled  in  smoking,  the  remainder  being 
consumed  in  combustion. 

The  use  of  tobacco  in  the  cigar  or  the  pipe 
is  less  objectionable  than  in  the  cigarette  for 
many  reasons.  It  is  the  almost  universal 
custom  of  those  addicted  to  the  cigarette  to 
inhale  the  smoke,  which  is  the  exception  with 
the  pipe  and  cigar  smoker.  But  nicotine  is 
not  the  only  poison  generated  in  the  cigarette 
even  where  tobacco  is  not  combined  with 
opium  or  other  drugs  used  to  contribute  to 
its  flavor  and  aroma;  the  combustion  of  to- 
bacco with  the  rice  paper  in  which  it  is  rolled 
makes  a  compound  which  is  neither  tobacco 
smoke  nor  paper  smoke,  but  an  alkaloid 
known  as  acrolein,  "the  name  of  which  is 
known  to  all  scientists  and  the  smell  of  which 
is  known  to  everyone."  Another  injurious 
product  of  cigarette  combustion  is  carbonic 
oxide.  These  two  products  of  the  cigarette 
are  far  more  virulent  than  tobacco  smoke. 
166 


THE  CIGARETTE  HABIT 

They  enter  the  blood  through  the  mucous 
membranes  of  the  mouth,  throat,  bronchial 
tubes,  and  lungs  and  act  as  powerful  de- 
pressives  on  the  heart.  Cigarette  poisoning 
manifests  itself  in  lung  and  throat  irritation, 
restlessness,  nervousness,  petulance,  inabil- 
ity to  concentrate  thought,  and  depression 
of  the  nervous  system. 

The  effect  is  not  only  physical  but  moral. 
The  keen  sense  of  discrimination  between 
right  and  wrong  is  blunted  and  the  finer 
moral  conceptions  become  obtused.  The 
highest  scholarship  in  our  colleges  and  uni- 
versities is  attained  by  men  who  are  non- 
smokers.  The  famous  college  athletes  have 
a  smaller  proportion  of  smokers  than  those 
who  have  not  achieved  distinction  in  athletics. 
If  these  facts  are  true  of  college  men  ap- 
proaching maturity,  they  will  be  still  more 
apparent  in  younger  boys.  Unfortunately, 
there  has  been  no  scientific  investigation 
167 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

along  these  lines  among  boys  in  our  second- 
ary schools.  But  the  head  of  one  of  our 
leading  preparatory  schools  is  authority  for 
the  statement  that  tobacco  is  the  bane  of  his 
school  and  that  more  boys  break  down  in 
health  and  are  sent  home  from  its  influence 
than  from  any  other.  A  recognition  of  the 
evil  results  of  cigarette  smoking  by  minors 
is  crystallized  in  the  enactment  of  laws  in 
more  than  a  dozen  states  against  selling 
cigarettes  to  minors,  as  well  as  making  it 
an  offense  for  adolescents  under  specified 
ages  to  smoke  cigarettes  on  the  streets. 

The  records  of  juvenile  and  criminal 
courts  disclose  the  fact  that  the  cigarette 
fiends  furnish  90  per  cent,  of  their  young 
criminals.  Dr.  George  F.  Butler  of  Chi- 
cago gives  this  testimony  as  to  the  moral 
weakening  of  the  boy  from  the  cigarette 
habit:  "In  my  work  some  years  ago  at  the 
Chicago  police  stations  and  later  as  county 
168 


THE  CIGARETTE  HABIT 

physician  in  the  detention  hospital  I  found 
that  almost  without  exception  the  young 
criminal,  dement  or  delinquent,  was  a  cigar- 
ette 'fiend.  I  am  forced  to  believe  that  this 
habit  has  largely  to  do  with  these  mental  and 
moral  infirmities." 

The  boy  at  the  rear  end  of  a  lighted  cigar- 
ette has  little  chance  of  obtaining  a  position 
from  a  business  man.  Even  the  telltale  yel- 
lowish discoloration  of  the  fingers  and  the 
cigarette  stench  of  his  breath  give  sufficient 
warning  for  the  employer  to  inform  the  ap- 
plicant that  he  is  not  wanted.  It  takes  a 
strong  body  and  a  clear  mind  to  succeed  in 
competitive  business.  The  boy  handicapped 
in  the  race  of  life  by  the  cigarette  habit  is  in 
the  same  condition  as  the  sprinter  who  is 
hopelessly  handicapped  in  a  hundred-yard 
dash;  neither  has  any  chance  of  winning. 
John  V.  Farwell,  the  Chicago  merchant,  is 
quoted  as  saying:  "I  would  as  lief  employ  a 
169 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

boy  who  steals  sheep  as  one  who  smokes  cig- 
arettes. One  is  no  more  to  be  trusted  than 
the  other."  To  the  same  effect  is  this  warn- 
ing of  a  well-known  English  physician:  "A 
boy  who  early  smokes  is  rarely  known  to 
make  a  man  of  much  energy  and  character 
and  he  generally  lacks  physical  and  mental 
as  well  as  moral  energy." 

This  subject  is  big  with  importance  for 
the  boy's  future.  It  is  one  of  the  great  boy- 
problems  and  it  should  be  discussed  frankly 
by  father  and  son  before  puberty,  soon  after 
which  period  so  many  boys  acquire  the  habit- 
It  may  be  difficult  for  the  father,  with  a 
cigar  in  his  mouth,  to  persuade  his  son  that 
tobacco  is  injurious,  but  whether  the  father 
is  a  smoker  or  not,  a  thorough  discussion  of 
the  subject  in  all  its  aspects  is  sure  to  prove 
beneficial.  As  the  boy  at  this  age  is  in  the 
hero-worship  period  and  as  his  heroes  in 
early  adolescence  are  always  athletes,  an  ap- 
170 


THE  CIGARETTE  HABIT 

peal  to  his  innate  longing  to  attain  physical 
perfection  and  athletic  distinction  will  be 
found  more  potent  than  the  appeal  for  men- 
tal or  moral  perfection,  although  the  latter 
should  not  be  neglected.  The  additional 
grounds  of  abstinence  from  motives  of  per- 
sonal purity  and  self-respect  have  their  ef- 
fect, although  the  argument  that  he  should 
not  needlessly  cause  annoyance  or  discom- 
fort to  others  has  little  weight  with  a  boy 
prior  to  the  reflective  period.  If  such  warn- 
ing is  given  to  the  boy  before  he  contracts 
the  habit  it  will  usually  prove  effective. 
Some  parents  conclude  their  instruction  with 
the  statement  that  the  son,  on  attaining  his 
physical  maturity  at  approximately  twenty- 
four  years  of  age — when  the  danger  of  nico- 
tine poisoning  on  the  growing  boy  has 
passed — may  then  make  his  own  decision  as 
to  whether  he  will  or  will  not  smoke. 

In  conclusion  a  word  of  suggestion  is  of- 
171 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

fered  as  to  the  means  which  should  be  em- 
ployed with  boys  who  have  already  con- 
tracted the  habit.  Dr.  H.  Krebs  of  Chicago, 
Secretary  of  the  Anti-Cigarette  League,  has 
used  in  his  practice  a  simple  remedy  for  the 
cigarette  habit  which  is  reputed  to  be  of  great 
effectiveness.  Its  base  is  the  chemical  reac- 
tion of  a  weak  solution  of  silver  nitrate  with 
nicotine,  which  creates  an  intensely  disagree- 
able taste  in  the  mouth.  After  the  smoker 
has  rinsed  his  mouth  with  this  solution  and 
draws  in  a  whiff  of  cigarette  smoke,  the 
chemical  effect  of  the  nicotine  in  combina- 
tion with  the  solution  produces  such  a 
nauseating  taste  that  further  smoking  for 
that  day  is  impossible.  The  treatment 
should  be  protracted  until  desire  has  waned 
and  will  power  has  become  reestablished. 


CHAPTER  XII 

BOY  GANGS 

BOYS  are  as  gregarious  as  sheep.  Their 
desire  to  herd  together  and  have  a 
leader  is  one  of  the  requisites  of  play,  a  most 
important  factor  in  their  educational  devel- 
opment. The  call  of  the  wild  to  you  is  not 
half  so  loud  as  the  call  of  the  lot  to  your 
boy.  It  is  as  natural  for  boys  to  run  in 
gangs  as  it  is  for  minnows  to  run  in  schools; 
youth  calls  to  youth.  There  they  find  others 
possessing  the  same  viewpoint,  tastes,  de- 
sires, ambitions,  and  occupations  as  their 
own.  To  the  active  boy  the  gang  is  a  democ- 
racy made  up  of  those  of  his  own  kind  in 
which  he  is  a  free  citizen  without  gaternal  or 
maternal  restraint.  In  his  new  world  there 
173 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

is  no  querulous  nor  uncomprehending  adult 
to  shout  repressive  commands  directed  at 
conduct  or  action.  All  is  as  wild  and  free 
as  his  own  wild  nature. 

There  are  two  classes  of  organization  to 
which  boys  belong — those  formed  by  them- 
selves without  supervision;  and  those  formed 
and  supervised  by  adults  for  them.  In  the 
former  class  are  the  street  and  alley  gangs, 
the  "Dirty  Dozen,"  the  "Noisy  Nine,"  the 
"Pirates'  Crew,"  the  scrub  baseball  team, 
the  "Swipers"  (organized  for  petty  depre- 
dations), the  lot  loafers,  school  fraternities, 
school  "crowds,"  "bunches"  or  cliques,  and 
other  loose  organizations  whose  only  bond 
of  cohesion  is  some  common  interest.  The 
latter  class  comprises  boys'  clubs;  Boy  Scout 
patrols ;  Sunday-school  classes ;  nature-study 
clubs;  baseball,  football,  and  basketball 
teams  under  the  direction  of  a  coach;  and 
numerous  other  boy  organizations  having  a 
174 


BOY  GANGS 

common  interest,  which  are  controlled  by  an 
adult. 

The  gang  spirit  is  strongest  between  the 
tenth  and  fifteenth  years  and  it  is  at  this 
period  that  boys  spontaneously  form  them- 
selves into  a  gang.  The  leader  of  the  gang 
is  the  member  who  is  best  equipped  for  the 
position  by  reason  of  age,  courage,  physical 
prowess,  and  inherent  qualities  of  leadership 
and  the  selection  is  never  made  by  formal 
vote  but  by  tacit  recognition  of  the  leader's 
superiority  and  by  willing  obedience  to  his 
commands. 

A  place  of  meeting  or  "hang  out"  is  es- 
sential to  every  gang.  It  may  be  a  room 
behind  a  shop,  an  attic,  a  stable  loft,  a  dug- 
out, or  a  shack  built  of  old  boards,  scrap  tin, 
and  paper.  Such  shelter  supplies  the  place 
for  their  meetings,  houses  their  communal 
property,  and  satisfies  their  atavistic  desire 
for  cover,  privacy,  and  security.  They  ex- 
175 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

hibit  a  strong  sense  of  proprietorship  in  such 
a  retreat.  It  is  all  their  own  and  is  guarded 
from  intrusion  by  other  boys  with  all  the 
physical  force  necessary  to  accomplish  this 
result. 

The  morale  of  an  unsupervised  gang  (just 
as  of  a  mob)  is  never  so  high  as  the  indi- 
vidual morale  of  its  constituents — while  in 
the  supervised  gang  it  is  higher.  The  gang 
will  steal  milk  bottles  from  a  back  door- 
step, loot  a  fruit  stand,  or  smash  a  window, 
when  no  individual  in  it  would  commit  the 
same  acts. 

The  love  of  excitement  and  adventure  and 
the  desire  to  be  "doing  something" — includ- 
ing the  joy  of  being  chased  by  the  police 
without  capture — are  the  motives  which 
prompted  a  certain  gang  to  grease  street  car 
rails  and  to  derail  cars  by  placing  spikes  in 
the  switches;  none  of  which  depredations 
would  have  been  committed  had  the  interest 
176 


BOY  GANGS 

of  the  members  been  directed  to  legitimate 
activities  and  sports  which  would  occupy 
their  leisure  time  and  satisfy  their  need  of 
physical  activity  and  mental  occupation. 
Such  offenses  are  unnatural  manifestations 
of  natural  tendencies — exuberance  run  wild, 
because  unrestrained.  The  contest  of  match- 
ing wits  with  the  police  is  thrilling  in  its 
possibilities  for  adventure.  Hours  of  time 
are  occupied  in  planning  depredations  and 
much  ingenuity  is  afterwards  shown  in  evad- 
ing detection  and  capture.  Their  common 
danger  is  the  bond  which  knits  them  to- 
gether. They  have  a  code  of  honor — ex- 
hibited principally  in  their  dealings  with  one 
another — the  first  and  chief  rule  of  which 
is  that  no  member  shall  "snitch"  on  any  other 
member  of  the  gang.  And  woe  betide  the 
gangster  who  violates  this  cardinal  principle ! 
He  may  confess  as  to  himself,  but  under  no 
circumstances  may  he  include  the  others,  un- 
177 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

der  the  certain  penalty  of  a  beating — or 
worse  still,  in  the  eyes  of  the  boy — ostracism 
by  the  gang.  Psychologically  considered, 
this  trait  is  a  manifestation  of  loyalty  gone 
wrong.  It  is  as  unwise  as  it  is  useless  to 
attempt  to  stamp  it  out,  when  it  can  and 
should  be  directed  into  its  proper  channel  of 
manifestation  in  which  it  becomes  one  of 
the  highly  prized  virtues. 

The  great  mass  of  male  offenders  haled 
to  our  juvenile  courts  are  members  of  un- 
controlled gangs  and  only  rarely  is  there 
seen  a  member  of  a  controlled  gang.  Street 
and  alley  gangs  are  the  training  schools  for 
delinquent  boys  and  from  them  is  graduated 
the  juvenile  criminal.  The  arrest,  convic- 
tion, and  imprisonment  of  such  offenders 
will  not  work  their  reformation.  It  can  be 
accomplished  only  through  the  parent  on 
whom  the  duty  naturally  devolves,  or,  in 
the  event  of  parental  default,  through  the 
178 


BOY  GANGS 

Judge  of  the  Juvenile  Court,  by  patiently 
pointing  out  the  evil  results  of  such  lawless- 
ness to  themselves  as  well  as  to  others,  by 
the  stimulation  of  their  pride  and  honor, 
and  most  of  all  through  diverting  the  gang's 
activities,  by  parent  or  probation  officer,  to 
lawful  channels  such  as  the  school,  office, 
workshop,  athletic  field,  and  supervised  so- 
ciety. 

Here  may  be  seen  the  beneficent  results 
flowing  from  the  application  of  positive  sug- 
gestions for  employments  which  will  super- 
sede those  of  harmful  import.  The  inhibi- 
tion of  a  lawless  activity  without  the  substi- 
tution of  a  lawful  one  to  fill  the  void  thus 
created  has  always  proven  resultless.  The 
gang  spirit  is  inherent  in  boy  nature  and 
can  never  be  suppressed.  No  one  who  under- 
stands the  boy  would  attempt  to  suppress  it. 
Objection  should  not  be  made  that  your  boy 
belongs  to  a  gang — and  he  does  belong  to 
179 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

one  of  some  sort — but  only  to  the  kind  of 
gang  with  which  he  is  associated.  It  is  your 
concern  whether  he  belongs  to  a  Boy  Scout 
gang  or  a  Dirty  Dozen  gang.  The  good 
gang  should  be  encouraged;  it  is  good  be- 
cause it  is  supervised;  and  the  bad  gang 
should  be  converted  into  a  good  one  by  adult 
direction.  The  recognition  of  the  psycho- 
logic necessity  for  gangdom  has  changed 
the  former  prohibition  against  gang  associa- 
tion to  the  encouragement  of  the  boy  to  join 
a  clean  crowd  engaged  in  clean  activities. 
This  innate  tendency  to  gangdom  furnishes 
the  cue  for  his  reclamation.  Supervised 
gangs  are  the  tongs  by  which  many  boys 
have  been  pulled  from  the  fires  of  de- 
linquency. They  furnish  the  means  for  his 
reformation  as  well  as  for  his  formation. 
It  is  an  everlasting  stigma  on  the  parent 
that  his  son  needs  reformation.  If  the  boy's 
formation  has  been  properly  nurtured  there 
180 


BOY  GANGS 

will  be  no  need  for  his  reformation.  The 
supervised  gang  forms  the  normal  boy  and 
reforms  the  delinquent  boy,  while  the  un- 
supervised  gang  unforms  both. 

Recognizing  this  intuitive  tendency  of 
boys  to  organize  and  maintain  gangs,  in 
whatever  multifarious  forms  it  may  take, 
and  the  pernicious  influence  of  unguided  and 
unrestrained  organizations  on  his  moral  and 
physical  life,  it  is  incumbent  on  parents  and 
those  standing  in  loco  parentis  to  supply  him 
with  an  organization  which  will  satisfy  the 
gang  spirit  in  his  nature.  A  failure  in  this 
regard  will  drive  the  boy  to  assocation  with 
the  unsupervised  gang  which  is  frequently 
the  school  for  dishonesty,  untruthfulness, 
bullying,  profanity,  unclean  speech,  disre- 
gard of  the  personal  and  property  rights  of 
others,  cigarette  smoking,  and  social  impur- 
ity. The  unclean  gang  exerts  a  powerful 
pull  toward  criminality,  while  the  clean  gang 
181 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

stands  as  a  barrier  between  the  boy  and  de- 
linquency. 

Your  boy  is  a  natural  gangster,  therefore 
encourage  him  to  join  a  clean  gang. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

WHAT  magic  there  is  in  the  name  of 
Scout !  It  calls  up  before  the  mind's 
eye  the  vision  of  a  buckskin-clad  pioneer, 
inured  to  the  hardships  of  the  trail  and  en- 
dowed with  the  virtues  of  strength,  forti- 
tude, clear  thinking,  and  courage  which  boys 
admire  so  much ;  one  whose  everyday  life  is 
made  up  of  a  series  of  thrilling  adventures 
and  hairbreadth  escapes.  Is  it  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  the  hero-worshiping  boy,  still 
in  the  semi-savage  state,  should  desire  to 
emulate  such  a  romantic  figure  in  our  na- 
tional life? 

The    organization    known    as    the  Boy 
Scouts  of  America  is  a  national  movement, 
183 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

rather  than  an  organization,  whose  primary- 
object  is  character  building.  It  is  non- 
sectarian  and  non-military.  It  furnishes  the 
adolescent  boy  with  facilities  for  the  expres- 
sion of  his  growing  body,  mind,  and  soul  and 
inspires  the  virtues  of  patriotism,  chivalry, 
honor,  courtesy,  loyalty,  self-respect,  faith- 
fulness, cheerfulness,  thoughtfulness,  and 
obedience. 

There  are  three  classes  of  Scouts ;  the  ten- 
derfoot, the  second-class  Scout  and  the 
First-class  Scout,  advancement  being  made 
according  to  the  proficiency  shown  by  ex- 
amination. Suitable  badges  awarded  for 
each  class  are  prized  as  great  honors  and 
furnish  the  incentive  to  further  progress  in 
Scoutcraft.  The  reader  is  referred  to  the 
official  handbook  of  the  organization  for  a 
detailed  statement  of  the  many  subjects  in- 
cluded in  their  curriculum.  These  subjects 
cover  practically  the  entire  range  of  an 
184 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

adolescent's   interests   and   activities   apart 
from  the  home,  the  school,  and  the  church. 

Not  the  least  important  among  the  many 
requirements  of  the  scout  is  the  good  turn 
or  kindness  which  he  must  do  for  someone 
every  day  without  financial  reward.  The 
performance  of  the  daily  good  turn  develops 
courtesy,  gallantry  and  social  consciousness 
and  fixes  in  his  mind  a  realization  of  the  fact 
that  he  is  one  of  the  threads  in  the  social 
fabric  of  humanity.  The  boy-training  of  to- 
day, whether  parental  or  organizational, 
should  emphasize  the  importance  of  service 
to  others,  and  the  boy  in  whom  this  altruistic 
idea  is  grounded  will  not  give  his  parents 
great  cause  for  worry.  If  this  organization 
had  no  requirement  other  than  the  daily  good 
turn,  that  fact  alone  would  be  sufficient  ex- 
cuse for  its  existence.  These  samples  of 
good  turns,  taken  from  the  records  of  a 
Scout  troop,  are  as  varied  as  the  natures  and 
185 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

opportunities  of  the  boys  themselves  and 
afford  an  interesting  study  in  adolescent 
psychology: 

1.  I  helped  a  blind  man  'cross  the  street. 

2.  A  steam  roller  was  passing  and  fright- 
ened a  horse,  I  held  the  horse  until  the  roller 
went  by. 

3.  Fed  a  starving  cat. 

4.  I  gave  a  dime  to  a  orfun  asilam. 

5.  Picked  up  a  broken  bottle  from  the 
road  so  it  wouldn't  cut  a  horse's  foot  or  an 
automobile  tire. 

6.  Gave  a  lady  my  seat  in  a  street  car. 

7.  I  helped  my  mother  clean  out  the  gar- 
ret. 

8.  I  gave  a  nickel  to  a  poor  lame  hobo. 

9.  I  loaned  your  chauffeur  a  dime  when 
he  was  broke. 

10.  I  picked  up  a  girl's  slate  in  school 
when  she   dropped  it   and  sharpened   her 
pencil. 

186 


THE  BOY- SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

11.  Helped  an  old  lady  with  a  lot  of  bun- 
dles get  on  a  street  car. 

12.  Put  out  a  fire  in  the  weeds  in  a  lot. 

13.  Ran  after  a  girl's  hat  which  blew  off 
and  brought  it  back  to  her. 

14.  A  team  hitched  to  an  ice  wagon  was 
walking  down  the  street  and  I  climbed  in 
the  back  way  and  stopped  them  and  drove 
them  to  the  police  station.     Just  then  the 
driver  came  running  up  for  his  team  and 
cussed  me  for  driving  them  off,  when  I  was 
only  doing  him  a  good  turn. 

15.  I     found    a    horde    in    the    street 
with  a  nail  stickken  up  and  I  threw  it  in 
a  vacunt  lot  and  pushed  the  nail  in  the 
ground. 

16.  I   uncanned  a  dog    (L  e.,  removed 
can  from  dog's  tail). 

17.  I  build  a  bird  house  in  my  back  yard. 

18.  I  licked  a  big  boy  for  licking  a  little 
boy. 

187 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

19.  I  run  errands  for  my  mother  when  I 
ot  to  have  bin  playin  ball. 

20.  Took  some  pervisions  to  a  pore  fam- 
bly  near  the  gas  wurks. 

21.  Helped  a  boy  with  his  arithmetic  les- 
sons. 

22.  Showed  a  man  where  Washington 
street  was. 

23.  I  stopped  two  kids  from  fighting. 

24.  When  my  mother  was  sick,  I  worked 
all  day  helping  her  on  Sattiday. 

25.  I  went  and  staid  with  a  sick  boy  and 
cheered  him  up. 

26.  I  found  a  dog  which  was  lost  and  I 
ast  Scotty  who  belonged  to  the  dog  and  he 
sed  he  thot  Mr.  Edwards  up  the  street,  so 
I  took  the  dog  back  to  Mr.  Edwards  and 
he  sed  thank  you  and  offured  me  a  quarter 
and  I  sed  Boy  Scouts  do  not  take  tips. 

27.  I  swore  off  smokin  cigerets. 

28.  I  turned  in  my  wages  to  my  mother. 

188 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

29.  I  cleaned  up  the  alley  back  of  the 
house. 

30.  I  helped  a  little  girl  pick  up  a  bag  of 
potatoes  when  the  bag  busted  and  made  an- 
other kid  quit  laffing  at  her. 

31.  I  went  for  a  can  of  beer  for  Mrs. 
Schwartzberger. 

It  is  evident  that  the  last  good  turn  was 
performed  by  a  slum  boy  who  had  recently 
joined  the  troop. 

It  requires  no  student  of  psychology  to 
recognize  the  different  developments  of 
moral  concepts  shown  in  these  replies.  Some 
betray  the  first  signs  of  the  dawning  of  moral 
consciousness,  while  others  show  a  keen  ap- 
preciation of  altruistic  ideals,  the  result  of 
ennobling  home  influence  and  proper  train- 
ing. 

The  performance  of  the  daily  good  turn 
develops  the  faculty  for  the  formulation  of 
ideals.  A  new  relationship  to  duty  is  thus 
189 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

fixed  and  the  boy's  moral  nature  is  builded, 
slowly  but  surely,  until  one  can  visualize  the 
completed  character  of  the  future.  Of  all 
this,  the  boy  himself  is  wholly  unconscious. 

The  boy  knows  little,  if  anything,  of  the 
principles  or  purposes  of  the  Boy  Scouts 
before  he  becomes  a  member.  For  that  mat- 
ter, the  average  parent  has  made  no  great 
effort  to  inform  himself  on  the  objects,  scope 
and  workings  of  the  organization,  as  too  fre- 
quently he  assumes  it  to  be  a  method  devised 
for  his  son's  amusement,  which  will  relieve 
the  parent  of  the  duty  of  personal  super- 
vision while  the  boy  is  so  occupied.  He  re- 
gards it  as  a  species  of  boy  entertainment, 
wholly  disassociated  from  its  educational  and 
ethical  import. 

The  youth  knows  only  two  things  about 
Boy  Scouts,  which  he  has  learned  from  ob- 
servation— that  they  wear  uniforms  and  go 
on  hikes.  Both  of  these  make  a  powerful 
190 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

appeal  to  his  imagination  and  interest.  The 
uniform  and  the  parade  satisfy  the  spec- 
tacular and  dramatic  needs  of  his  nature  and 
the  hikes  gratify  his  savage  and  atavistic 
tendencies  which  prompt  him  to  seek  the 
wilds  and  live  temporarily  as  did  his  remote 
ancestor — the  primeval  man.  He  joins  the 
organization  to  satisfy  these  primitive  de- 
sires and  thus  effects  a  return  to  the  simple 
life,  which  furnishes,  to  the  city  youth  espe- 
cially, an  antidote  for  the  injury  wrought 
by  our  increasingly  complex  civilization  and 
hurried  methods  of  living. 

He  does  not  dream  nor  care  that  the 
fundamental  purpose  of  the  organization  is 
character  building;  indeed,  if  he  were  in- 
formed of  this  fact,  his  interest  would  prob- 
ably wane.  He  dislikes  character  building 
in  the  abstract,  but  is  intensely  interested  in 
concrete  scout  activities  which  silently  and 
inevitably  produce  character. 
191 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

The  system  of  teaching  a  boy  ethics  and 
morals  by  lecturing  him  or  by  feeding  him 
with  tracts  which  hold  up  to  view  the  ab- 
stract beauties  of  morality  has  long  since 
been  thrown  into  the  discard  as  archaic  and 
useless.  It  is  one  of  the  relics  of  unscientific 
training — Puritanical,  wasteful,  inefficient. 
The  keen  discernment  of  the  boy's  mind  sees 
the  dry  bones  of  such  methods.  The  boy 
is  red-blooded  and  alive  and  wants  live  meth- 
ods. Some  of  our  forefathers  truly  believed 
they  had  found  the  secret  of  boy-training  in 
the  cultivation  in  him  of  a  sense  of  self- 
abasement,  personal  unworthiness,  and 
insignificance  which  they  fostered  by 
requiring  the  boy  to  sing  hymns  which 
likened  him  to  a  poor  worm  groveling 
in  the  dust.  I  have  never  yet  met  a 
boy  who  admitted  his  relationship  to  the 
worm — apart  from  his  compulsory  expres- 
sion of  the  sentiment  in  song. 
192 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

The  Scout  idea  is  to  get  back  to  elemental 
things  by  contact  with  the  earth,  the  ozone 
of  the  open,  the  wild  life  of  the  forest  and 
stream.  These  things  not  only  make  him  a 
strong,  healthy  animal,  but  teach  him  the 
joy  of  living  and  how  to  live.  They  train 
the  boy  to  "Be  Prepared"  for  all  the  various 
contingencies  of  life  and  thus  exemplify  the 
motto  of  the  organization. 

Scout  camps  and  hikes  are  a  school  for 
training  the  imagination  in  the  legends  of 
the  woods  and  of  animal  life,  which  are  in- 
spired by  the  mystery  of  the  camp  fire  and 
the  glorious  solitude  of  the  starry  night, 
faintly  stirred  by  the  wind  in  the  tree  tops. 
The  gleam  of  wavering  lights  from  the  camp 
fire  transforms  the  faces  of  the  circling 
scouts  into  animated  sprites.  Ascending 
flames  split  the  darkness  into  dancing  shad- 
ows which  people  the  surrounding  woods 
with  living  myths  and  fables.  A  kaleido- 
193 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

scopic  riot  of  color  mounts  upward,  paint- 
ing luminous  images  on  the  retina  as  it 
sketches  in  chromatic  outline  the  heroes  of 
fantasy.  It  is  such  things  which  inspire  the 
poetry  of  life.  Nothing  furnishes  such 
stimulus  to  the  imagination  as  the  camp  fire. 
It  calls  into  play  all  the  mystery  and  mysti- 
cism of  the  human  mind;  it  discovers  the  hid- 
den wellsprings  of  romance,  legend  and 
adventure;  it  inspires  the  art  of  the  story- 
teller as  nothing  else  can  do  and  furnishes  a 
perfect  stage  setting  for  the  dramatic  tale 
which  unobtrusively  carries  its  own  moral. 
It  is  here  that  the  raconteur  can  weave  his 
tale  from  the  warp  of  adventure  and  the 
woof  of  romance  until  the  resulting  mantle 
of  heroism  fits  every  boyish  auditor.  Deeds 
of  daylight  loom  large  with  valor  against  the 
background  of  night.  The  potent  influence 
of  such  surroundings  for  driving  home  last- 
ing impressions  on  the  imaginative  and 
194 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

sensitive  mind  of  youth  has  never  been 
equaled. 

Around  the  nightly  camp-fire  "council" 
are  recounted  the  events  of  the  day;  awards 
for  merit  are  given;  songs  breathing  the 
martial  spirit  which  boys  love  so  well  are 
sung;  the  Scout  Master's  story  of  heroism 
and  adventure  is  heard  with  eager  ears  and 
is  followed  invariably  by  frank  comments  in- 
dicating the  manner  of  its  reception;  finally 
a  drowsy  song  like  "My  Old  Kentucky 
Home,"  reflecting  the  somnolent  spirit  of 
the  lengthening  hours,  brings  the  "council" 
to  a  close ;  soon  the  soft  tones  of  "taps"  are 
heard  droning  from  the  bugle  and,  rolled  in 
their  blankets,  the  little  tourists  quickly 
journey  to  slumberland. 

Scout  associations  foster  esprit  de  corps 

and  team  work,  as  well  as  a  recognition  of 

relative  rights  and  duties  which  is  in  the 

highest  degree  cultural.     The  appreciation 

195 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

of  property  rights  is  cultivated  to  such  an 
extent  that  a  scout  will  not  willfully  damage 
the  property  of  another.  Not  the  least 
beneficent  influence  exerted  by  the  organi- 
zation is  its  inculcation  of  obedience,  disci- 
pline, loyalty,  truthfulness,  chivalry,  courte- 
sy, respect  for  women,  helpfulness  to  others, 
patriotism,  and  manliness.  These  qual- 
ities are  unconsciously  and  unobtrusively 
impressed  on  his  plastic  character  during  the 
formative  age  until  they  become  a  com- 
ponent part  of  it.  A  scout  is  taught  that 
he  is  always  "on  honor,"  and  that  his  word 
is  accepted  unreservedly,  as  the  truth.  The 
youth  feels  more  needs  than  the  home,  school, 
and  church  can  supply — the  need  for  com- 
panionship, play,  sports,  adventure,  and  ro- 
mance. His  gregarious  and  social  instincts 
must  be  fed  by  association  with  those  of  his 
own  age ;  his  love  of  adventure  and  physical 
expression  must  be  gratified  by  the  clean 
196 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

activities  of  the  forest,  the  stream,  the  ball 
field ;  his  love  of  romance  needs  find  expres- 
sion in  the  extraordinary  experiences  of 
woodcraft,  pathfinding  and  cave  explora- 
tion; and  his  love  of  play  must  be  sati- 
ated by  rough  sports,  games,  and  athletics 
through  which  he  attains  his  physical,  men- 
tal, and  ethical  development.  It  is  an  ap- 
plication of  Froebel's  epoch-making  theory 
of  training  and  developing  boys  by  means 
of  play.  It  is  the  utilization  of  his  "wild 
period"  by  systematic  direction  and  over- 
sight for  the  up-building  of  character  and 
manhood. 

The  Scout  movement  is  playing  a  huge 
joke  on  the  boy  in  supplying  him,  under  the 
guise  of  fun,  play,  sport,  and  adventure  with 
work,  study,  and  developmental  activities 
whose  real  import  is  the  upbuilding  of  char- 
acter, mind,  and  body;  but  this  ulterior  mo- 
tive is  never  suspected  by  the  boy  until  after 
197 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

these  results  have  been  accomplished.  If 
the  instinctive  tendencies  to  companionship 
with  those  of  his  own  age  are  not  normally 
gratified  by  membership  in  a  supervised 
gang  they  will  find  expression  in  his  associa- 
tion with  an  unsupervised  gang  with  the 
evil  results  which  inevitably  flow  from  such 
association.  The  Boy  Scout  organization 
is  the  ideal  gang  because  it  satisfies  his  nat- 
ural desires  for  gangdom  while  it  is  silently 
and  surely  building  both  body  and  character. 
"Of  all  present-day  organizations  for  the 
improvement  and  happiness  of  normal  boy- 
hood," Dr.  G.  S.  Hall  has  written,  "the 
institution  of  the  Boy  Scouts  is  built  at  once 
on  the  soundest  psychology  and  the  shrewd- 
est insight  into  boy  nature.  The  Scout 
Patrol  is  simply  a  boy's  gang,  systematized, 
overseen,  affiliated  with  other  like  bodies, 
made  efficient  and  interesting,  as  boys  alone 
could  never  make  it,  and  yet  everywhere, 
198 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

from  top  to  bottom,  essentially  a  gang.  Oth- 
er organizations  have  adopted  gang  fea- 
tures. Others  have  built  themselves  around 
various  gang  elements.  The  Boy  Scout 
Patrol  alone  is  the  gang.  The  whole  Boy 
Scout  movement  is  a  shrewd  and  highly  suc- 
cessful attempt  to  take  the  natural,  in- 
stinctive, spontaneous  boys'  society,  to  add 
nothing  to  what  is  already  there,  but  delib- 
erately to  guide  the  boy  into  getting  com- 
pletely just  that  for  which  he  blindly  gropes. 
The  obvious  answer  to  the  whole  gang  prob- 
lem, therefore,  is  this :  Turn  your  gang  into 
a  Boy  Scout  Patrol."  A  troop  of  Scouts 
is  only  a  denatured  gang  whose  activities 
have  been  changed  from  vicious  to  character- 
building  tendencies,  a  result  which  is  ac- 
complished by  the  systematic,  helpful,  and 
inspirational  guidance  of  the  Scout  Master 
along  the  lines  of  the  Scout  curriculum.  The 
potent  influence  of  activities  disguised  as 
199 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

play,  which  produce  physical  and  moral  bet- 
terment, is  nowhere  more  apparent  than  in 
this  organization.  The  things  for  which  the 
unsupervised  gang  was  blindly  seeking  have 
been  completely  furnished  by  the  supervised 
Scout  Patrol.  Judge  Edward  Porterfield 
of  the  Kansas  City  Juvenile  Court  paid  this 
tremendous  tribute  to  the  influence  of  the 
Boy  Scouts :  "If  every  boy  in  the  city  would 
join,  the  gangs  would  disappear,  the  juve- 
nile court  would  soon  be  a  stranger  to  the 
youth,  and  we  would  rear  a  generation  of 
men  that  would  not  require  much  police  pro- 
tection. I  have  never  had  a  boy  scout  in 
my  court  and  there  are  twelve  hundred  of 
them  in  Kansas  City."  President-emeritus 
Charles  W.  Eliot  of  Harvard  stated  in  a 
recent  address:  "I  feel  sure  that  nothing 
but  good  will  come  from  the  educational 
or  training  qualities  of  the  Boy  Scout  move- 
ment as  a  whole.  It  is  setting  an  example 
200 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

that  our  whole  public  school  system  ought 
to  follow." 

The  scheme  supplies  the  companionship 
of  those  of  his  own  age  and  the  opportunity, 
under  competent  supervision,  for  the  exer- 
cise of  physical,  mental,  and  manual  activi- 
ties which  make  for  his  betterment.  Its 
effectiveness  lies  in  the  universality  of  its  ap- 
peal ;  it  touches  the  life  of  every  boy  regard- 
less of  social  status  or  religious  affiliations; 
it  gets  a  moral  grip  on  boys  of  every  phase 
of  temperamental  condition;  and  its  moral 
virus  gets  under  a  boy's  hide  like  a  hypo- 
dermic injection. 

The  universality  of  its  appeal  to  boyhood 
is  shown  by  its  membership  which  is  re- 
cruited from  all  ranks  of  society — from  the 
slum  to  the  palace.  It  touches  the  boy  on 
every  side  of  his  manifold  interests.  The 
best  proof  that  the  organization  is  founded 
on  correct  psychologic  principles  is  its  popu- 
201 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

larity  with  the  boys  themselves  and  the  splen- 
did caliber  of  the  boys  who  are  graduated 
from  it.  Its  strong  appeal  is  grounded  in 
its  harmony  with  boy  nature.  Without  un- 
derstanding his  mental  processes  or  the  psy- 
chology of  his  preferences,  the  boy  knows 
what  he  likes  and  what  he  dislikes.  He 
loves  the  Boy  Scouts  because  it  is  an  organi- 
zation which  satisfies  the  cravings  of  his  boy 
heart.  One  Scout  expressed  the  thought  in 
these  words,  "Scouts  are  always  doin'  things 
and  they  have  the  most  fun."  Always  doin' 
things!  What  a  world  of  psychological 
truth  is  crystallized  in  this  youthful  state- 
ment! It  drops  the  plummet  in  the  well- 
springs  of  truth.  Continuous  action  is  the 
key  to  his  evolution  and  by  it  the  budding 
boy  blossoms  into  the  mature  man.  In  a 
word,  the  entire  Scout  plan  consists  of 
crowding  the  boy's  life  so  full  of  agreeable 
activities  of  useful  and  ethical  import  that 
202 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

he  has  no  time  for  noxious  things.  The  busy 
boy  is  the  best  boy.  The  Scout  influence  is 
one  of  the  most  powerful  factors  for  good 
in  the  boy's  life  and  is  the  most  potent  sup- 
plemental agency  which  has  yet  been  de- 
vised for  adolescent  development. 

We  hear  much,  in  these  latter  days,  of 
business  and  industrial  efficiency.  Experts 
in  this  line  are  able  to  systematize  a  busi- 
ness, a  railroad,  or  a  factory  so  that  a  given 
amount  of  labor  will  produce  a  maximum  of 
results.  Even  such  unskilled  labor  as  shovel- 
ing is  susceptible  of  scientific  improvement. 
An  efficiency  expert  employed  by  a  great 
corporation  decreased  the  number  of  move- 
ments of  ore  shovelers  one-half,  with  a  cor- 
responding increase  in  tonnage  of  ore 
handled,  and  without  an  increase  in  the  ex- 
penditure of  physical  energy. 

It  is  equally  important  that  efficiency 
methods  should  be  employed  in  the  training 
203 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

of  boys.  Scientific  methods  applied  to  boy- 
culture  will  increase  the  quality  of  the  output 
as  well  as  make  the  work  easier  for  the  boy 
and  the  parent.  The  Boy  Scout  movement 
is  an  efficiency  method  of  scientific  boy- 
training  in  mass.  It  supplements  perfectly 
the  work  of  the  home,  the  school,  the  church. 
It  furnishes  a  kind  of  training  which  none 
of  these  supplies  and  in  making  this  state- 
ment I  do  not  undervalue  the  inestimable 
influence  of  these  institutions  on  the  life  of 
the  boy  today. 

The  home  is  the  primary  and  most  im- 
portant agency  for  the  boy's  general  train- 
ing, the  school  for  mental  development,  and 
the  church  for  moral  and  religious  culture; 
but  in  the  wide  field  of  boy  nature  not 
reached  by  these  agencies  the  Boy  Scout 
organization  directs  his  development  from 
the  child  into  the  man. 

The  organization  has  passed  the  experi- 
204 


THE  BOY  SCOUT  INFLUENCE 

mental  stage  and  is  now  on  the  highway  of 
proved  success.  Thousands  of  boys  are 
clamoring  for  admission  which  must  be  de- 
nied until  Scout  Masters  can  be  enlisted  and 
trained  to  take  charge  of  troops.  Here  is 
a  wonderful  field  for  social  service,  ripe  for 
harvest,  awaiting  the  man  who  loves  boys 
and  who  recognizes  his  duty  in  having  some 
part  in  raising  the  standard  of  our  future 
citizenship. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

JUVENILE  READING 

NEXT  to  environment  and  companions, 
books  exercise  the  most  powerful  in- 
fluence for  good  or  evil  on  the  life  of  the 
boy.     His  companionship  with  books  is  as 
intimate  as  his  companionship  with  play- 
mates and  usually  occupies  as  large  a  por- 
tion of  his  life,  especially  after  puberty.  The 
value  of  literature  is  two-fold:  it  molds  the 
character  and  develops  the  taste,  both  of 
which  processes  are  closely  related.      It  is 
I      natural  for  the  boy  to  want  "something  to 
\     read"   and  this   desire   is   not   satisfied  by 
\    schoolbooks,  biographies,  or  histories.     His- 
1   tory  which  is  a  mere  recital  of  facts,  names, 
\  and  dates  in  which  the  human  element  is 
1  206 


JUVENILE  READING 

little  emphasized  becomes  wearisome  and  un- 
profitable. The  boy  voluntarily  reads  for 
entertainment;  he  studies  because  he  is  com- 
pelled to. 

It  is,  of  course,  apparent  that  the  child's 
reading  should  be  suited  to  his  mental  and 
psychological  requirements.  He  begins  with 
nursery  rhymes  and  jingles  and  then  follow 
fairy  tales,  folklore  and  wonder-tales  told 
by  the  parent.  These  serve  as  an  introduc- 
tion to  tales  and  stories  of  mythology,  whicli 
are  in  turn  stepping  stones  to  history  and 
biography.  At  the  age  of  nine  or  ten  he 
begins  to  develop  a  taste  for  fiction,  tales 
of  adventure,  chivalry,  and  daring  experi- 
ence which  exploit  the  virtues  of  some  hero, 
on  which  he  feeds  for  a  number  of  years. 

Still  another  class  of  reading  not  denomi- 
nated literature  is  contained  in  the  so-called 
"useful"  books  which  are  purely  informative 
and  educational  in  character.     Shortly  be- 
207 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

fore  the  "teen  age,"  when  he  is  interested 
in  experimentation  and  construction,  he 
seeks  books  giving  information  about  gar- 
dening, handicrafts,  mechanics,  physics, 
magic,  and  manual  training,  the  latter  usu- 
ally accompanied  by  plans  and  diagrams  for 
making  such  things  as  sleds,  boats,  model 
aeroplanes,  and  electrical  apparatus. 

The  boy  whose  reading  has  been  properly 
directed  graduates  from  tales  of  adventure 
into  the  better  forms  of  literature,  including 
standard  fiction,  imaginative  narration,  his- 
tory, historical  novels,  essays,  and  poetry. 
/Few  children,  unaided,  develop  a  taste  for 
good  literature;  it  must  be  cultivated  by 
judicious  direction.  The  best  literature  is 
as  potent  in  its  influence  for  good  as  trashy 
reading  is  for  evil.  The  boy's  love  for  the 
thrilling,  exciting  story  of  adventure  beyond 
the  realms  of  his  own  experience  leads  him 
to  devour  the  so-called  "nickel  library"  and 
208 


JUVENILE  READING 

"dime  novel,"  which  may  be  easily  procured 
from  certain  news-stands  and  provides  his 
private  reading  of  which  the  parent  knows 
nothing. 

These  paper-back  pamphlets  are  usually 
brilliantly  illuminated  in  colors  to  attract 
the  eye  and  exhibit  a  thrilling  picture  illus- 
trating some  incident  in  the  story.  A  few 
of  the  titles  of  these  "yellow"  books  afford 
ample  evidence  of  their  contents  and  influ- 
ence. I  recall  through  the  aid  of  boyhood 
recollection  such  titles  as  "Hobo  Harry,  the 
Boy  Tramp";  "Reckless  Rob,  the  Red 
Ranger  of  the  Rockies";  "Dare  Devil  Dick, 
the  Boy  Bandit";  "The  Jesse  James  Week- 
ly," devoted  to  the  exploits  of  that  outlaw 
gang;  "Slippery  Sam,  the  Boy  Detective," 
and  others  of  that  ilk.  The  widespread  de- 
mand for  such  stories  is  shown  by  their 
circulation  which  now  exceeds  a  million 
copies  annually. 

209 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

In  all  these  lurid  tales,  the  detective,  out- 
law, vagabond,  adventurer,  bandit,  or  tramp 
is  made  the  hero.  Their  pernicious  effect  on 
the  boy's  character  results  from  idealizing 
the  reputed  virtues  of  the  criminal  or  semi- 
criminal  hero  until  the  lad's  moral  sense  is 
debased;  and  this  is  quite  apart  from  the 
vitiating  effect  on  the  boy's  literary  taste 
which  is  the  inevitable  result  of  feeding  on 
these  potboilers  and  penny-a-liners.  Such 
reading  matter  may  be  instantly  recognized 
by  the  parent  from  its  outward  dress  and 
should  be  as  promptly  banished. 

But  not  all  trashy  reading  bears  such  open 
and  extraneous  evidence  of  its  character. 
Another  equally  vicious  class  of  books  ap- 
pears in  the  outward  form  of  good  fiction, 
bound  in  boards,  with  attractive  titles  and 
covers,  and  sometimes  written  by  authors 
of  well-known  reputations.  They  consist  of 
stories  that  fascinate  the  boy  with  their  thrills 
210 


JUVENILE  READING 

but  inspire  false  ideals  of  life  even  though 
they  do  not  always  possess  the  fault  of 
openly  idealizing  vice;  the  story  of  the  cabin 
boy  who  advanced  to  captain  through  some 
impossible  deed  of  heroism  or  adventitious 
circumstance,  without  the  training  or  experi- 
ence necessary  to  qualify  him  for  the  posi- 
tion ;  the  story  of  the  boy  who  achieved  honor 
and  distinction  by  trickery  or  sharp  prac- 
tice ;  the  story  of  the  hero  who  gained  wealth 
by  some  get-rich-quick  method,  all  are  as 
vicious  in  their  suggestion  and  influence  as 
the  "nickel  library."  And  the  poison  of  such 
literature  is  as  subtle  as  it  is  fatal.  Mr.  E. 
W.  Mumford  is  authority  for  the  following 
statement:  "Many  a  parent,  who  would 
promptly  take  John  out  to  the  woodshed 
if  he  learned  that  the  boy  was  collecting  dime 
novels,  himself  frequently  adds  to  John's 
library  a  book  quite  as  bad." 

The  author  once  requested  a  twelve-year- 
211 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

old  boy  friend  to  tell  him  about  the  best  book 
he  had  ever  read.  Here  is  his  reply:  "It 
is  a  story  about  two  boys  who  went  to  Flori- 
da in  an  aeroplane  to  explore  the  Ever- 
glades. They  got  lost  in  the  swamps  and 
jungles  and  were  captured  by  a  tribe  of 
wild  Indians.  These  Indians  had  also  cap- 
tured a  little  white  girl  who  had  wandered 
away  from  her  parents.  One  night,  the  boys 
killed  nearly  all  the  Indians  with  tomahawks 
as  they  slept  and  escaped  with  the  little  girl 
in  the  aeroplane  followed  by  a  volley  of 
poisoned  arrows  which  just  grazed  'em  but 
didn't  hit  'em."  The  impossibility  of  the 
situations,  the  false  ideals  presented,  the 
mock  heroics  and  the  lack  of  literary  quality 
in  the  story  all  were  unnoticed  by  the  boy. 
He  saw  only  a  youthful  hero  engaged  in  a 
thrilling  adventure  which  culminated  in  a 
rescue  of  chivalric  idealism. 

The  danger  from  such  books  is  even  great  - 
212 


JUVENILE  READING 

er  than  from  the  "nickels"  because,  com- 
ing in  the  guise  of  good  fiction,  their  appeal 
is  more  insidious.  The  average  boy  knows, 
either  by  intuition  or  by  direct  statement  of 
the  fact,  that  the  "blood-and-thunder  nickel" 
is  prohibited  by  his  parents;  hence  he  reads 
them  in  the  barn  or  in  the  privacy  of  his 
room  and  hides  them  meantime  where  they 
will  be  safe  from  the  inquisitive  eyes  of  spy- 
ing parents. 

I  once  asked  a  boy  who  was  engaged  in 
this  prohibited  reading  if  he  knew  the  reasons 
for  his  parents'  opposition.  His  reply  was 
characteristic:  "They  don't  want  me  to 
read  nothin'  excitin'."  They  committed  the 
mistake  of  attempting  to  crush  his  natural 
desire  for  exciting  tales  of  adventure  and 
heroism  by  confiscating  "nickels"  without 
giving  him  equally  exciting  books  of  daring 
enterprise  which  breathed  a  high  moral 
spirit.  Instead,  they  fed  him  on  goody- 
213 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

goody  books  which  he  accepted  with  the  same 
grace  with  which  one  takes  a  dose  of  bitter 
medicine,  until  finally  he  rebelled.  By  out- 
side suggestion,  conveyed  through  his  par- 
ents, this  boy  is  now  reading  "thrillers"  of 
some  ethical  and  moral  value,  which  already 
give  evidence  of  becoming  the  gateway  to  a 
desire  for  good  literature. 

The  "yellow"  tale  bound  in  boards  should 
be  confiscated  and  destroyed  by  the  parent 
as  quickly  as  he  would  cast  an  armful  of 
paper-bound  "libraries"  into  the  furnace. 
The  reading  of  this  stuff  by  boys  is  much 
more  common  than  is  ever  suspected  by  par- 
ents. Boys  exchange  these  books  writh  each 
other  until  they  become  dog-eared  and  dirty 
through  repeated  readings,  and  the  supposed 
merit  of  each  is  passed  from  lip  to  lip  as 
the  reader  lends  the  book  to  a  companion 
with  the  statement,  "It's  a  pippin."  The 
continued  reading  of  this  trash  cannot  fail 
214 


JUVENILE  READING 

to  have  its  effect  in  a  lower  standard  of 
morals  and  a  longing  to  achieve  the  fruits 
of  industry,  ability,  and  experience  by  im- 
possible short-cuts;  in  addition  to  which  it 
keeps  him  out  of  touch  with  good  literature. 

Equally  detrimental  in  their  influence  are  \ 
most  of  the  comic  Sunday  supplements  of 
the  newspapers,  especially  where  they  pic- 
ture the  small  boy  engaged  in  vicious  or 
mischievous  acts  alleged  to  be  humorous.  No 
parent  would  wish  to  see  his  own  offspring 
copy  the  examples  set  by  these  comic  heroes 
— yet  the  inspiration  to  emulate  them  is  fur- 
nished when  the  parent  hands  the  supple- 
ment to  his  son.  ' 

There  are  many  books  of  fiction  which  V 
give  the  boy  the  thrills  he  seeks  for  and  at 
the  same  time  present  high  ideals,  a  decent 
standard  of  morals,  and  such  reasonable  ap-     1 
proach  to  probable  conditions  as  will  not      \ 
destroy  the  boy's  perspective  by  their  illog- 
215 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

icality  or  impossibility.  Such  books  do  not 
always  possess  the  highest  literary  quality 
— but  they  do  serve  as  stepping  stones  by 
which  the  blood-and-thunder  addict  mounts 
to  better  literature,  and,  as  such,  they  have 
a  definite  and  valuable  place  in  juvenile 
eading. 

It  must  be  apparent  that  morals  cannot 
be  acquired  by  committing  to  memory  a  set 
of  rules,  but  are  unconsciously  fashioned  by 
every  influence  which  strikes  the  impres- 
sionistic and  receptive  character  of  youth 
and  leaves  its  indelible  imprint  for  good  or 
evil  throughout  the  life  of  the  individual. 
Character  is  formed  during  the  short  period 
of  boyhood.  It  is,  therefore,  of  superlative 
importance  that  all  character  forming  in- 
\  fluences  to  which  the  boy  is  subjected,  includ- 
\  ing  his  reading,  shall  be  of  the  best  and 
>|iighest  type. 

Ideal  companions  for  our  sons  are  more 
216 


JUVENILE  READING 

difficult  to  find  in  real  life  than  in  fiction. 
The  perfect  boy  may  live  somewhere— but 
not  in  my  immediate  neighborhood.  The 
companions  of  our  boy  are  usually  worse 
than  he — at  any  rate  we  think  them  so;  if 
one  is  good-natured  he  may  be  a  bully;  if  an- 
other is  of  high  moral  character  he  may  be  so 
lazy  and  untidy  that  his  influence  is  un- 
wholesome ;  a  third  may  be  untruthful,  while 
still  another  may  be  so  goody-goody  that 
his  influence  is  positively  depressing.  But 
in  the  carefully  selected  literature  of  today 
may  be  found  suitable  companions  for  your 
son — the  heroes  who  exemplify  in  the 
achievement  of  enterprises  of  adventure  and 
daring  the  virtues  which  all  boys  should  seek 
to  emulate.  Manly  models  are  unconsciously 
copied.  From  the  intimate  companionship 
with  such  heroes  gained  by  reading,  the  boy 
obtains  inspiration  for  bravery,  truth,  obedi- 
ence, honor,  loyalty,  industry,  manliness, 
217 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

courtesy,  and  ambition.     Chumming  with 
virtue  inspires  virtue. 

"There  is  a  world,"  says  Walter  Taylor 
Field,  "into  which  children  may  enter  and 
find  noble  companionship.  It  is  the  world 
of  books.  Let  your  boy  escape  for  a  time 
from  the  meanness  of  the  boy  across  the 
street,  and  let  him  roam  the  woods  with 
Hiawatha,  sail  the  seas  with  Sindbad,  build 
stockades  with  Crusoe,  fight  dragons  with 
Jason,  joust  with  Galahad;  let  him  play  at 
quoits  with  Odysseus,  and  at  football  with 
Tom  Brown.  These  are  playmates  who 
will  never  quarrel  with  him  nor  bully  him, 
but  from  whom  he  will  learn  to  be  brave, 
self-reliant,  manly,  quick  to  do  for  others, 
and  set  with  his  face  toward  the  light."  The 
character-building  qualities  of  such  books  are 
\as  unquestioned  as  their  intellectual  value. 
A  library  has  been  termed  by  Lord  Lyt- 

3n  a  "literary  pharmacopoeia"  which  con- 
218 


JUVENILE  READING 

tains  the  remedies  for  mental  and  moral 
shortcomings.  Modified  to  suit  the  require- 
ments of  boyhood  it  means  that  doses  of 
literature  should  be  administered  as  specifics 
for  diseases  of  character,  as  well  as  to  act 
as  tonics  to  build  up  the  moral  virtues.  For 
the  boy  inclined  to  deceit  books  are  pre- 
scribed in  which  truthfulness  and  honor  are 
exalted;  for  the  lazy  boy  is  prescribed  the 
tale  of  monumental  achievement  through  in- 
dustry; the  anemic  bookworm  should  receive 
a  course  of  reading  concerning  athletics, 
sports,  and  life  in  the  open;  disloyalty  and 
disobedience  would  call  for  a  diet  of  stories 
in  which  the  antithesis  of  these  defects  is 
exploited.  In  a  word,  it  is  an  attempt  to 
correct  his  moral  and  temperamental  de- 
ficiencies by  placing  him  under  the  influence 
of  the  heroic  characters  of  fiction  who  exhibit 
the  moral  qualities  which  the  boy  lacks.  This/ 
device  is  no  longer  a  mere  theory;  it  hajl 
219 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

been  tried  in  innumerable  instances  and  al- 
ways with  good,  if  variable,  results.  The 
eff ectiveness  of  this  unique  plan  will  doubt- 
less be  in  proportion  to  the  skill  of  the  diag- 
nostician in  recognizing  the  exact  moral 
ailment  and  the  accuracy  of  the  literary 
physician  in  prescribing  the  corrective  read- 
ing. 

Every  boy  admires  a  hero  and  seeks  to 
emulate  him.  If  his  hero  is  one  of  question- 
able morals,  the  effect  of  his  companionship 
on  the  boy  reader  will  be  almost  as  pernicious 
as  the  influence  of  an  evil  chum  in  daily  life. 
On  the  other  hand,  companionship  with  the 
noble  characters  of  fiction  cultivates  in  the 
reader  the  same  virtues  as  those  exhibited 
by  the  hero  and  inevitably  establishes  moral 
standards.  When  the  boy  demands  that 
virtue  shall  be  rewarded  and  vice  punished 
it  is  an  evidence  of  his  ethical  evolution,  and 
the  continued  recurrence  of  these  instances 
220 


JUVENILE  READING 

in  his  reading  finally  fixes  for  all  time  his 
criterion  of  moral  values. 

The  dust-covered  books  which  formerly 
filled  the  shelves  of  our  Sunday-school 
libraries  depicting  milk-and-water  characters 
and  heroes  of  immaculate  goody-goodyness, 
happily,  have  been  replaced  by  books  por- 
traying virile,  red-blooded,  intensely  human 
heroes  who  are  not  afraid  to  get  their  clothes 
dirty.  No  dust  ever  accumulates  on  such 
books  but  they  do  become  worn  and  soiled 
with  constant  reading. 

Stories  of  animal  life  are  valuable  wheA 
informative  of  their  customs  and  habits  and 
they  generally  inspire  a  love  for  animal 
heroes  which  prompts  a  manifestation  of 
kindness  toward  all  dumb  creatures.  Not 
infrequently  the  hidden  moral  contained  i: 
these  stories  is  driven  home  as  forcibly  as  i: 
the  best  fiction  in  which  human  beings  pla; 
the  principal  roles. 

221 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

A  well  selected  juvenile  magazine  should 
find  a  place  on  every  boy's  reading  table, 
not  so  much  for  the  value  of  its  fiction — 
which  is  so  variable  in  quality — as  for  its 
news  features  concerning  the  things  which 
loom  big  in  the  boy's  life — school  and  col- 
lege athletic  events,  Boy  Scout  meets,  new 
games  and  sports,  the  latest  improvements  in 
wireless  construction,  and  new  ideas  in  handi- 
craft. It  is  from  such  a  journal  that  he  ob- 
tains information  of  current  events  which 
are  commanding  the  attention  of  all  boys 
and  he  thus  keeps  abreast  of  the  times  in 
Boyville. 

The  book  which  furnishes  entertainment  as 
well  as  inspires  interest  commands  the  atten- 
tion of  the  adolescent  in  the  direct  ratio  that 
these  elements  conform  to  his  psychological 
development.  Juvenile  fiction  is  usually  in- 
teresting to  the  adult  only  when  read  from 
the  juvenile  viewpoint.  When  so  read  it 
222 


JUVENILE  READING 

may  prove  a  fascinating  recital  of  human 
aspirations  and  achievements  as  well  as  a 
profound  study  in  the  covert  psychological 
impulses  which  actuate  the  several  characters 
of  the  story. 

"The  great  problem  in  juvenile  reading 
for  the  parent/'  to  quote  Franklin  K. 
Mathiews,  librarian  of  the  Boy  Scouts,  "is 
to  choose  from  the  huge  mass  of  boy's  books 
the  ones  the  boy  will  like  best  and  yet. those 
which  will  be  best  for  the  boy."  It  is  obvious 
that  he  will  not  read  what  he  does  not  like, 
but  it  does  not  follow  that  he  should  be  given 
all  books  that  he  likes  irrespective  of  their 
influence.  Rest  assured  that  your  boy  does 
not  himself  select  a  book  because  of  its  high 
moral  tone  or  its  qualities  of  uplift.  He 
would  doubtless  side-step  it  if  he  suspected 
such  influence.  He  is  looking  for  thrills, 
excitement  and  adventure — something  out- 
side the  domain  of  his  everyday  experience. 
223 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

If  he  finds  them  he  is  satisfied  with  the  book 
irrespective  of  its  tendencies  for  good  or 
bad.  I  am  now  speaking  of  the  average  red- 
blooded  boy  and  not  the  halo-crowned  youth 
of  supernal  goodness.  As  long  as  we  supply 
him  with  the  needed  thrills  coupled  with 
good  influence,  he  will  not  go  after  the  thrills 
coupled  with  bad  influence.  Juvenile  fiction 
which  does  not  count  for  character  culture 
is  worthless.  As  he  advances  in  years  and 
increases  his  intellectual  equipment  his  love 
for  lurid  tales  will  wane,  and  if  his  reading 
has  been  supervised,  a  desire  for  the  best 
fiction,  history,  biography,  essays,  ethics,  and 
poetry  will  easily  and  naturally  take  its 
place. 

The  limitations  of  this  chapter  have  pre- 
vented more  than  a  brief  discussion  of  the 
influence  of  literature  in  shaping  the  boy's 
character  and  intellect  and  the  reader  is  re- 
ferred to  those  books  which  will  be  found 
224 


JUVENILE  READING 

useful  by  the  parent  in  outlining  and  direct- 
ing a  course  of  reading  for  the  boy  at  his 
several  periods  of  development  from  infancy 
to  manhood.  The  first  two  volumes  given 
below  are  especially  valuable  for  their  com- 
prehensive lists  of  suitable  books. 


TITLE 

The  Children's  Reading    -     - 
Fingerposts      to      Children's 
Reading     ----_. 
How  to  Tell  Stories  to  Chil- 
dren   

How  to  Teach  Reading  -  - 
Special  Method  in  Primary 

Reading     -     -     - 
Special  Method  in  the  English 

Classics 

Books  and  Libraries  -  -  - 
Books  and  Culture  -  -  - 
Biblical  Masterpieces  -  -  - 
Readings  in  Folklore  -  -  - 
History  and  Literature  -  - 
Childhood  in  Literature  and 

Art 
Little  Folks'  Lyrics      -     -     - 

225 


AUTHOR 

Olcott 
Field 

Bryant 
Clark 


•/ 
-     -     McMurray 


McMurray 

Lowell 

Mabie 

Moulton 

Skinner 

Rice 

Scudder 
Sherman 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

TITLE  AUTHOR 

Counsel  upon  the  Reading  of 

Books         Van  Dyke 

Kindergarten      Stories     and 

Morning  Talks    -    -    -     -     Wiltse 


CHAPTER  XV 

AGENCIES  FOR  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

THE  importance  of  educating  the 
young  in  the  physiology  and  hygiene 
of  sex  is  no  longer  doubted.  The  widespread 
ignorance  and  misinformation  among  boys 
concerning  the  human  sexual  function  is 
proof  of  the  necessity  of  substituting  there- 
for normal,  accurate  knowledge  which  will 
conduce  to  hygienic  and  eugenic  betterment. 
However  much  one  may  close  his  eyes  to 
the  fact,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  many 
children  acquire  distorted  information  about 
matters  of  sex  at  a  very  early  age — much 
earlier  than  the  average  parent  ever  sus- 
pects. Among  boys,  misinformation  on  sex 
matters  is  the  rule  and  correct  information 
the  exception. 

227 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

The  necessity  for  scientific  knowledge  on 
the  subject  is  based  on  (1)  the  preservation 
of  individual  sex  health,  (2)  the  improve- 
ment of  the  progeny;  (3)  the  relief  of  boys 
from  the  mental  disquietude  caused  by  cer- 
tain normal  manifestations  of  adolescence; 
(4)  his  rescue  from  the  clutches  of  quack 
"medical  specialists";  (5)  the  suppression 
or  control  of  venereal  diseases;  (6)  the 
abatement  of  false  modesty  which  prevents 
sane  discussion  among  adults  of  a  question 
so  important  to  humanity,  to  pave  the  way 
for  sex-education  backed  by  an  enlightened 
and  cooperating  public  opinion,  without 
which  a  general  dissemination  of  knowledge 
covering  the  dangers  to  health  and  morals 
resulting  from  wrong  sex  habits  is  im- 
possible. 

There  is  an  ever-present  disposition  to 
ring  down  the  curtain  of  taboo  on  the  dis- 
cussion of  sex.  A  subject  which  so  vitally 
228 


SEX-INSTRUCTION  AGENCIES 

affects  the  health  and  morals  of  both  the 
individual  and  the  community  should  war- 
rant such  discreet  discussion  and  thoughtful 
consideration  as  will  best  conserve  these  vital 
fundamentals  of  life.  The  former  antipathy 
to  any  reference  to  the  subject  is  now 
being  slowly  superseded  by  a  nobler  and 
purer  sentiment  which  invites  the  formation 
of  plans  and  methods  designed  to  obviate 
the  grave  physical  and  moral  dangers  at- 
tendant on  ignorance  and  misinformation. 
A  healthier  public  opinion  and  enlightened 
conscience  will  clear  the  way  for  the  instruc- 
tion not  only  of  the  young  but  of  adults 
concerning  the  sacred  processes  of  human 
reproduction. 

It  is  obvious  to  say  that  instruction  on  sex 
can  best  be  given  the  child  by  his  parents; 
they  are  his  natural  teachers,  possessing  the 
confidence  of  the  child  and  having  the  inti- 
mate relationship,  affection  and  sympathetic 
229 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

understanding  whicK  renders  personal  in- 
struction effective.  But  the  neglect  of  this 
parental  duty  is  so  prevalent  even  among 
educated  parents  who  are  solicitous  for  their 
children's  future,  that  courses  of  instruction 
in  our  grammar  and  high  schools  and  col- 
leges are  now  being  advocated  to  supply  this 
parental  omission.  Indeed,  one  or  more 
public  high  schools  in  our  large  cities  have 
already  added  sex  instruction  to  their  course 
of  study,  while  a  number  of  normal  schools 
and  colleges  have  for  some  years  included 
it  in  their  curriculums.  Such  a  revolutionary 
innovation  has  not  been  unattended  by  op- 
position, chiefly  from  parents  and  public 
school  boards,  but  only  rarely  from  the  heads 
of  educational  institutions  of  advanced 
grades.  The  introduction  of  such  a  course 
is  attended  by  some  impediments,  not  the 
least  of  which  is  the  difficulty  of  procuring 
teachers  who  possess  both  the  tact  and  the 
230 


SEX-INSTRUCTION  AGENCIES 

pedagogic  knowledge  necessary  to  give  in- 
struction on  the  subject  in  its  biological, 
hygienic,  and  ethical  aspects  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  will  inform  and  warn  the  child  against 
the  dangers  of  premature  sex  excitation  and 
satisfy  his  curiosity  without  stimulating  his 
interest.  Another  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
teaching  the  subject  in  public  and  other 
schools — even  when  classes  are  segregated 
by  sex — is  the  psychology  of  the  mob,  evi- 
dent in  a  large  group  of  boys  who  already 
are  possessed  of  copious  misinformation 
which  tends  to  a  more  flippant  and  prurient 
reception  of  the  subject  than  when  the  in- 
formation is  given  privately.  This  is  evi- 
dent even  in  advanced  schools.  One  of  our 
greatest  institutions  of  learning  has  two 
courses  of  lectures  on  sex  hygiene  for  fresh- 
men and  seniors,  which  are  generally  referred 
to  by  the  students  as  "Smut  One"  and 
"Smut  Two."  The  American  Federation 
231 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

for  Sex  Hygiene  is  perhaps  the  leading  ad- 
vocate of  the  policy  of  sex  education  in 
graded  and  high  schools,  to  be  given  in  con- 
formity with  a  thoughtful  and  conservative 
plan  which  has  its  basis  in  biological  study. 
The  heads  of  many  prominent  colleges  and 
universities  have  given  their  indorsement  to 
this  plan  which  is  endowed  with  such  elas- 
ticity that  it  may  be  varied  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  differing  mental  and  physical  require- 
ments of  the  young. 

Conceding  that  the  average  public  school 
teacher  has  one  essential  qualification  for 
giving  such  instruction,  i.  e.,  the  confidence 
of  the  children,  her  incapacity  because  of  the 
lack  of  a  broad  scientific  knowledge  of  the 
subject,  or  youth,  or  both,  is  generally  rec- 
ognized. The  other  alternative — special 
lecturers  of  known  scientific  qualifications- 
is  open  to  the  suggestion  that  they  would 
soon  be  known  as  "sex  specialists"  and  the 
232 


SEX-INSTRUCTION  AGENCIES 

presentation  of  the  subject  under  these  con- 
ditions would  place  upon  it  an  undue 
emphasis  instead  of  having  it  taught  in  its 
natural  and  orderly  sequence  as  a  part  of 
nature  study,  biology,  and  ethics  where  it 
belongs.  So,  also,  the  children's  lack  of  con- 
fidence in  an  outside  lecturer  would  minimize 
the  good  results  of  such  information.  Physi- 
cians are  generally  regarded  as  the  proper 
persons  to  give  this  instruction,  although 
the  suggestion  has  been  made  that  inasmuch 
as  the  ideal  instruction  must  concern  the 
normal  function  of  sex,  and  that  a  physi- 
cian's work  is  chiefly  along  the  abnormal 
line  (disease)  and  a  tendency  to  the  develop- 
ment of  certain  morbidity  necessarily  results 
therefrom — the  biologist,  especially  if  a 
regular  instructor,  is  the  one  best  equipped 
for  this  delicate  task.  There  is  an  ever- 
present  danger,  either  from  unqualified 
teachers  or  wrong  pedagogic  methods,  of 
233 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

unduly  emphasizing  the  topic  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  the  curiosity  of  the  child  will  be 
stimulated.  This  is  the  very  result  which 
should  be  avoided;  the  boy  should  be  given 
only  enough  instruction,  as  an  incidental 
part  of  one  of  the  broader  subjects  with 
which  it  is  intimately  related,  to  satisfy  his 
natural  curiosity  and  suffice  the  physical  and 
ethical  requirements  of  his  particular  stage 
of  development.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
difficulties  connected  with  sex-instruction 
should  not  be  unduly  stressed,  for  they  are 
not  insurmountable. 

By  whatever  instrumentality  the  instruc- 
tion is  given  to  classes  it  is  agreed  that,  as 
in  private  instruction,  the  information  should 
be  only  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  psychological 
and  physical  needs  of  the  child  at  the  period 
of  development  which  he  has  then  attained. 
During  the  period  of  adolescence  the  scope 
of  information  is,  therefore,  greatly  broad- 
234 


SEX-INSTRUCTION  AGENCIES 

ened  to  meet  the  requirements  of  that  period. 
The  opponents  of  sex-instruction  in  schools 
believe  that  it  will  obtrude  the  subject  too 
prominently  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
youth  and  thereby  destroy  the  restraints  of 
modesty  which  were  intended  to  be  con- 
served. 

The  advocates  of  the  school  plan  insist 
that  the  beneficent  results  of  such  instruc- 
tion will  greatly  outweigh  any  possible  evil 
which  may  follow  from  it.  They  submit 
that  the  moral  and  physical  dangers  to  which 
children  are  subject  as  the  result  of  ignor- 
ance, and  the  presence  of  venereal  disease 
in  boys  to  a  degree  not  understood  by  the 
general  public,  are  sufficient  warrant  for 
such  instruction — wholly  apart  from  other 
considerations. 

The  entire  subject  is  of  tremendous  mo- 
ment and  worthy  of  the  careful  study, 
thought,  and  judgment  of  parents  and 
235 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

scientists  for  the  formulation  of  a  future 
policy  which  can  adequately  cope  with  this 
great  problem. 

In  a  report  of  the  Special  Committee  of 
the  American  Federation  for  Sex  Hygiene 
on  the  matter  and  methods  of  sex-education 
this  recommendation  is  made:  "Your  com- 
mittee would  emphasize  the  necessity  of  good 
judgment  and  tact  in  introducing  sex-in- 
struction into  schools.  It  should  not  be 
introduced  prematurely,  but  only  so  fast  as 
teachers  can  be  found  or  trained  who  are 
competent  to  give  it,  and  so  fast  as  public 
sentiment  will  support  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  undue  weight  must  not  be  given  to 
the  difficulties  attending  such  instruction 
even  under  present  conditions,  inasmuch  as 
even  occasional  mistakes  will  do  far  less 
harm  than  allowing  children  to  continue  to 
gain  this  knowledge,  as  many  of  them  now 
do,  from  impure  sources — receiving  a  per- 
236 


SEX-INSTRUCTION  AGENCIES 

nicious  first  impression  which  induces  in 
them  an  attitude  of  mind  toward  the  sub- 
ject that  makes  it  extremely  difficult  later 
to  give  them  the  best  instruction.  In  not 
a  few  such  cases  subsequent  sound  teaching 
is  practically  fruitless." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

AN  OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

THE  limitations  of  this  chapter  will  pre- 
vent more  than  a  mere  outline  of  the 
periods  in  a  child's  life  when  sex-informa- 
tion should  be  imparted  and  the  character  of 
it.  Familiarity  with  the  boy's  psychology 
given  in  Chapters  III  and  IV  will  be  of 
value  in  its  application.  From  birth  until 
the  child  is  six  years  old — the  prescholastic 
age — he  is  at  home  under  the  care  and  guid- 
ance of  his  mother,  excluding  the  kinder- 
garten which  is  attended  by  a  small  propor- 
tion of  children.  During  this  period  the 
mother's  chief  concern  should  be  the  hygienic 
care  of  the  child's  body  and  the  prevention 
of  danger  which  may  come  from  an  inju- 
238 


OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

$ 

idicious  or  immoral  nurse.  The  only  sex- 
instruction  should  be  a  simple  answer  to  his 
question  as  to  the  origin  of  human  life — 
usually  prompted  by  the  birth  of  a  baby 
whom  he  has  seen  or  of  whom  he  has  heard. 
This  may  be  done  by  the  statement  that 
God  sent  it  in  a  human  basket  and  the  doctor 
delivered  it,  or  other  phraseology  which  car- 
ries the  same  import  and  will  satisfy  his 
curiosity  for  the  time  being  until  another 
inquiry  is  made.  It  is  desirable  to  remem- 
ber that  the  child  up  to  approximately  ten 
years  of  age  will  continue  these  interroga- 
tories to  his  mother  from  time  to  time  and 
that  whenever  he  ceases  to  make  such  in- 
quiries it  is  evidence  that  he  believes  he  has 
obtained  full  information  on  the  subject 
either  from  parental  or  from  outside  sources. 
The  mother,  not  the  father,  should  begin 
the  sex-education  of  her  son.  The  most  ef- 
fective method  of  imparting  sex-information 
239 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

is  by  what  is  called  the  biological  approach. 
At  age  seven  or  eight  the  foundation  for 
sex-instruction  should  be  laid  by  information 
concerning  plant  production ;  that  the  pollen 
dust  of  the  father  plant  becomes  attached 
to  the  legs  of  the  honey-seeking  bee  and  is 
transferred  to  the  mother  plant,  where  it 
fertilizes  the  seed  from  which  a  baby  plant 
grows.  The  function  of  the  wind,  also,  in 
eff ecting  the  conjunction  of  pollen  with  the 
ovule  of  the  stigma  should  be  explained;  and 
how  the  pollen  or  male  principle  fertilizes 
and  gives  life  to  the  female  ovule,  making 
seed  from  which  a  new  plant  is  born. 

Now  by  successive  stages  and  in  detail  his 
mind  should  be  directed  to  the  processes  of 
reproduction  in  the  lower  forms  of  animal 
life,  such  as  fishes,  snakes,  and  frogs ;  then  to 
the  higher  forms  of  life  represented  in  birds 
and  domestic  fowl,  and  then  to  the  still 
higher  form  of  mammals,  and  finally  to  re- 
240 


OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

production  in  the  human  being,  emphasizing 
its  biological  and  sacred  aspects.  The  won- 
derful workings  of  nature  should  be  made 
predominant  in  explaining  the  reproduction 
of  the  lower  orders  of  life  while  the  pure 
and  spiritual  phase  of  human  reproduction 
should  be  stressed.  Coincident  with  the  con- 
clusion of  such  instruction,  there  should  be 
given  a  brief  explanation  of  the  functions 
of  the  generative  organs  in  the  process 
of  reproducing  the  species,  the  injury  of 
secret  vice  and  the  necessity  for  personal 
purity. 

At  this  first  sign  of  approaching  puberty 
the  father  should  assume  the  duty  of  further 
instruction,  which  should  now  advise  the  boy 
of  the  wonderful  sexual  changes  about  to 
take  place  in  his  body  and  the  new  and  pow- 
erful desires  about  to  be  awakened.  The 
normal  development  of  adolescence  should 
be  pointed  out  and  a  warning  sounded  as  to 
241 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

the  error  of  mistaking  certain  natural  phe- 
nomena for  the  abnormal. 

At  the  age  of  fifteen  to  sixteen  the  neces- 
sity arises  for  admonition  against  sexual 
promiscuity  and  its  relationship  to  the  hy- 
gienic health  of  the  individual  and  its  eu- 
genic influence  on  coming  generations. 
During  the  entire  period  the  note  of  per- 
sonal purity  should  be  sounded  by  a  strong 
appeal  to  his  moral  and  religious  sense. 

Untold  numbers  of  boys  go  wrong  sexu- 
ally through  ignorance,  who  would  have 
kept  to  the  paths  of  purity  had  they  but 
known. 

It  is  important  that  the  boy,  especially 
during  adolescence,  shall  be  kept  from  the 
contaminating  influences  of  theatrical  pro- 
ductions whose  sex-appeal  is  conspicuous. 
The  moving  picture  show,  which  fascinates 
children  with  its  interest,  is  objectionable 
chiefly  because  of  its  connection  with  the 
242 


OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

cheap  vaudeville  so  commonly  associated 
with  it.  Few  vaudeville  "turns"  have  any 
ethical,  moral,  or  intellectual  value.  They 
are,  at  best,  ephemeral  entertainment  and 
frequently  are  so  coarse  as  to  be  unmoral  if 
not  positively  immoral  in  their  persuasive- 
ness. The  sex  excitation  produced  by  the 
physical  display  of  the  partly  clothed  female, 
risque  dialogues  and  suggestive  songs  which 
are  common,  in  some  degree,  to  a  certain 
class  of  musical  comedies,  burlesques,  and 
vaudeville  shows  is  a  potent  reason  for  keep- 
ing the  adolescent  away  from  their  influence. 
And  it  must  be  obvious  that  the  sex-problem 
play  is  equally  unsuited  to  his  needs. 

As  a  guide  to  the  subject  matter  and 
methods  of  sex-instruction  the  author  ap- 
pends a  brief  bibliography  culled  from  the 
flood  of  literature  on  the  subject.  Much  that 
has  been  published  is  good;  some  is  bad 
and  some  is  indifferent.  The  necessity  for 
243 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

wide-spread  sex-education  has  resulted  in  the 
formation  of  many  societies  whose  primary 
object  is  the  dissemination  of  knowledge  on 
the  subject  through  lectures  and  the  pub- 
lication of  pamphlets  designed  for  the  edu- 
cation of  the  parent  in  how  and  when  to 
impart  sex-instruction  to  his  child.  Other 
pamphlets,  graded  according  to  the  age  of 
the  reader,  are  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of 
the  boy  himself.  Such  leaflets  may  be  pur- 
chased from  these  societies  for  the  few  cents 
which  they  cost  to  publish,  and  samples  are 
frequently  issued  gratuitously.  Among  the 
many  pamphlets,  leaflets,  and  circulars  is- 
sued by  the  several  societies  for  sex-hygiene, 
the  following  are  suitable  for  the  instruction 
of  parents  or  may  be  placed  in  the  hands  of 
the  boy  himself  if  so  indicated: 

AMERICAN  FEDERATION  FOR  SEX  HYGIENE. 
105  West  40th  St.,  New  York  City. 
"Report  of  the  Special  Committee  on 
244 


OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

the  Matter  and  Methods  of  Sex  Edu- 
cation." Thomas  M.  Balliet,  Dean  of 
the  School  of  Pedagogy,  New  York 
University;  Maurice  A.  Bigelow, 
Professor  of  Biology,  Teachers  Col- 
lege, Columbia  University;  Prince 
A.  Morrow,  M.D.  34  pp.,  Decem- 
ber, 1912.  Copies  upon  request. 
"The  Teaching  of  Sex  Hygiene." 
Prince  A.  Morrow,  M.D.  Copies 
upon  request. 

CALIFORNIA  SOCIAL  HYGIENE  SOCIETY. 
U.  S.  Custom  House,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 
Four  circulars  as  follows: 
"The  Four  Sex  Lies."    4  pp. 
"When  and  How  to  Tell  the  Children." 

For  parents.    7  pp. 
"The  Secret  of  Strength."    For  boys 

ten  to  thirteen  years  of  age.    5  pp. 
"Virility  and  Physical  Development." 
245 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

For  boys  thirteen  to  eighteen  years 
of  age.    7  pp. 
Samples  upon  request  with  postage. 

COLORADO  SOCIETY  FOR  SOCIAL  HEALTH. 
1434  Glenarm  St.,  Denver,  Colo. 

"Teaching  Regarding  Sex  in  the  Pub- 
lic Schools."  Edward  Jackson,  M.D. 
Reprint  from  Denver  Medical  Times. 
7  pp. 
Samples  upon  request  with  postage. 

CONNECTICUT  SOCIETY  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE. 

42  High  Street,  Hartford,  Connecticut. 

"Sex  Hygiene  for  Young  Men."    8  pp. 

CHICAGO  SOCIETY  or  SOCIAL  HYGIENE. 
305  Reliance  Building,  Chicago,  111. 
A  circular: 

"Self  Protection."  Sexual  Hygiene  for 
Young  Men.    4  pp. 
246 


OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

MARYLAND  SOCIETY  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE. 
15  East  Pleasant  Street.    Baltimore,  Md. 
Two  circulars  on  Social  Hygiene: 
"Sex  Hygiene  for  Young  Men."   1912. 

4pp. 

Reprint  of  seven  Charts,  on  "Methods 
of  Teaching  Sex  Hygiene,"  from 
the  exhibit  of  The  American  Fed- 
eration for  Sex  Hygiene.  1913. 
8pp. 
Samples  and  prices  upon  request. 

DETROIT  SOCIETY  FOR  SEX  HYGIENE. 
Wayne  County  Medical  Society's  Build- 
ing, Detroit,  Mich. 
Three  leaflets : 

"A  Word  to  Parents  on  Sex  Hygiene." 

6pp. 

"A  Plain  Talk  with  Boys."    For  par- 
ents to  tell  boys  from  six  to  fourteen 
years  old.    4  pp. 
247 


[YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

"Some  Plain  Facts  for  Young  Men 
upon  Sexual  Matters."  6  pp.  Single 
copies  upon  request  with  postage; 
25  cents  per  100. 

ST.  Louis  SOCIETY  FOR  SOCIAL  HYGIENE. 
4069  Shenandoah  Ave.,  St.  Louis,  Mis- 
souri. 
Two  circulars: 

"A  Plain  Talk  with  Boys  on  Sex  Hy- 
giene."   4  pp. 
"The  Effect  of  Venereal  Diseases  on 

Young  Men."    4  pp. 
Samples  upon  request. 

THE   SOCIETY  or  SANITARY  AND  MORAL 

PROPHYLAXIS. 

105  West  Fortieth  St.,  New  York  City. 
Educational  pamphlets: 

"The  Young  Man's  Problem."    32  pp. 
"Instruction    in    the    Physiology    and 
248 


OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

Hygiene  of  Sex."  For  teachers. 
24  pp. 

"The  Boy  Problem."  For  parents  and 
teachers.  32  pp. 

"How  My  Uncle,  the  Doctor,  In- 
structed Me  in  Matters  of  Sex."  32 
pp. 

"Health  and  Hygiene  of  Sex."  32  pp. 
Each  10  cents. 

THE  OREGON  SOCIAL  HYGIENE  SOCIETY. 
719  Selling  Building,  Portland,  Oregon. 
Five  circulars : 

"The  Four  Sex  Lies."    4  pp. 
"When  and  How  to  Tell  the  Children." 

8  pp. 
"Books  for  Use  in  the  Family  on  Sex 

Education."    2  pp. 
"The     Secret     of     Strength."       For 
younger  boys,  ten  to  thirteen  years 
of  age.    6  pp. 

"Virility  and  Physical  Development." 
249 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

For  older  boys,  thirteen  to  eighteen 
years  of  age.    8  pp. 

PENNSYLVANIA  SOCIETY  FOR  THE  PREVEN- 
TION OF  SOCIAL  DISEASE. 
1708  Locust  St.,  Philadelphia,  Penna. 
"The  Social  Evil  in  University  Life." 
Robert  N.  Willson,  M.D.  1912.  Re- 
print from  the  New  York  Medical 
News.    19  pp. 
Prices  upon  request. 

THE  TEXAS  STATE  SOCIETY  OF  SOCIAL  HY- 
GIENE. 

T.  Y.  Hull,  M.D.,  Secretary,  San  An- 
tonio, Texas. 

"Instructions   Our   Children   Need  to 
Form   Ideas    of   Personal   Purity." 
Malone  Duggan,  M.D.    10  pp. 
"The  Child."     Theo.  Y.  Hull,  M.D. 
Reprint  from   Club   Woman's  Ar- 
gosy, December,  1910.    8  pp. 
250 


OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

THE  SOCIETY  OF  SOCIAL  AND  MORAL  HY- 
GIENE OF  SEATTLE. 

League  Building,  Seattle,  Washington. 
"Stamp  Out  the  Black  Plague."    An 
envelope  containing  three  circulars: 
"Four  Sex  Lies." 
"The  Black  Plague." 
"Why,  What,  When  and  How  Parents 
should  Instruct  Children  in  Sex  Mat- 
ters." 
Samples  and  prices  upon  request. 

THE    SPOKANE   SOCIETY  OF   SOCIAL  AND 

MORAL  HYGIENE. 

422  Old  National  Bank  Building,  Spo- 
kane, Washington. 
Five  circulars :    "The  Need  for  Education 

in  Sexual  Hygiene."    4  pp. 
"A  Frank  Talk  with  Boys  and  Girls 
About  Their  Birth."    Children  six  to 

ten.    4  pp. 

251 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

"A  Straight  Talk  with  Boys  About 
Their  Birth  and  Early  Boyhood." 
Boys  ten  to  thirteen.  4  pp. 

"A  Plain  Talk  with  Boys  About  Their 
Physical  Development."  For  boys 
approaching  puberty  and  during  pu- 
berty. 6  pp. 

"Sexual  Hygiene  for  Young  Men." 

8pp. 
Sample  Set  upon  request  for  10  cents  in 

stamps. 
The  following  books,  among  others,  are 

recommended: 

"Truths.  Talks  with  a  Boy."  Dr.  E. 
B.  Lowry,  Forbes  &  Co.,  Chicago. 

"From  Youth  to  Manhood."  Dr. 
Winfield  S.  Hall.  Association  Press. 
New  York. 

"What  a  Father  Should  Tell  His  Little 
Boy."    Isabelle  T.  Smart.    Bodmer 
&  Co.,  New  York. 
252 


OUTLINE  OF  SEX-INSTRUCTION 

"What  a  Father  Should  Tell  His  Son." 
Isabelle  T.  Smart.  Bodmer  &  Co., 
New  York. 

"The  Renewal  of  Life.  How  and 
When  to  Tell  the  Story  to  the 
Young."  Margaret  W.  Morley,  A. 
C.  McClurg  &  Co.,  Chicago. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

CHILDREN'S  COURTS 

NO  work  on  boy-training  would  be  com- 
plete without  a  reference  to  an  in- 
strumentality of  recent  origin  for  reclaiming 
the  wayward  boy  which  marks  a  forward 
step  in  the  solution  of  the  child  problem — 
the  juvenile  court.  The  most  notable  change 
in  American  jurisprudence  in  the  last  dec- 
ade has  been  the  establishment  and  develop- 
ment of  such  courts  for  child  saving  and 
the  prevention  of  crime.  Before  the  advent 
of  these  courts,  all  children  charged  with  the 
commission  of  offenses  were  tried  in  crim- 
inal and  police  courts  as  criminals  and  with 
criminals.  While  awaiting  trial,  they  were 
confined  in  jail  with  thieves,  confidence  men, 
254 


CHILDREN'S  COURTS 

beggars,  drunkards,  burglars,  hold-up  men, 
and  murderers,  because  the  state  had  made 
no  provision  for  their  separate  detention 
pending  trial. 

Under  such  conditions  the  child  acquired 
through  association  and  conversation  the 
viewpoint  of  the  criminal  as  well  as  an  educa- 
tion in  crime  which  he  would  put  into 
practice  after  his  release.  Amid  such 
surroundings  were  laid  the  foundations  for 
the  careers  of  many  of  the  criminals  who 
now  crowd  our  jails  and  penitentiaries 
to  overflowing.  Speaking  of  such  condi- 
tions, Judge  Richard  S.  Tuthill  of  the  Chil- 
dren's Court  of  Chicago  said,  "The  State 
had  educated  innocent  children  in  crime 
and  the  harvest  was  great."  A  thoughtful 
police  official  once  remarked  of  a  boy  in 
such  surroundings,  "He  is  on  a  toboggan, 
the  lower  end  of  which  rests  in  hell." 

The  gradual  recognition,  by  an  aroused 
255 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

public  conscience,  of  the  evil  results  of  such 
a  system  put  into  operation  the  forces  which 
in  many  states  have  abolished  the  old  plan 
of  regarding  and  punishing  the  child  as  a 
criminal  and  substituted  the  principle  that 
the  wayward  child  is  a  dependent  whom  the 
state,  like  a  wise  parent,  will  restrain  from 
evil  and  educate  in  the  paths  leading  to  good 
citizenship,  through  the  agency  of  the  juve- 
nile court  and  its  efficient  aid,  the  probation 
officer. 

We  now  recognize  the  inability  of  the  child 
to  commit  a  crime,  judged  by  the  standards 
applicable  to  the  adult  criminal,  for  the  rea- 
son that  his  mental  and  moral  concepts  have 
not  yet  reached  the  stage  of  development 
which  can  distinguish  between  right  and 
wrong  with  the  clearness  of  the  adult.  What 
in  the  adult  with  full  consciousness  of  the 
import  and  effects  of  his  acts  would  be  tres- 
pass, assault  and  battery,  larceny,  and  bur- 
256 


CHILDREN'S  COURTS 

glary,  are  in  the  child  varied  forms  of  moral 
disease  which  it  is  the  state's  business  to  cure 
—not  punish.  It  is  conceded  that  it  would 
be  monstrous  and  brutal  to  punish  a  child 
for  contracting  measles,  scarlet  fever,  or 
whooping  cough,  and  it  is  equally  monstrous 
for  the  state  to  punish  the  same  child  before 
he  attains  moral  maturity,  for  contracting  a 
moral  disease  which  manifests  itself  in  acts 
which  are  crimes  only  when  committed  by 
adults  with  full  comprehension  of  their  moral 
significance. 

Again  we  revert  for  our  guidance  to  the 
child's  viewpoint  which  in  many  instances  is 
closely  akin  to  that  of  the  untutored  savage. 
During  a  summer  which  I  spent  in  the  wil- 
derness of  the  great  woods  of  the  North  I 
encountered  an  Indian  who  habitually  killed 
deer  out  of  season  and  in  violation  of  the 
laws  of  the  state  in  which  he  lived.  When 
I  asked  him  why  he  did  not  obey  the  law,  he 
257 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

replied,  "God  made  deer  for  Indian  before 
white  man  made  book  [the  law]."  From 
his  viewpoint,  he  was  not  guilty  of  wrong- 
doing in  killing  deer  to  supply  food  for  his 
family;  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  law  he  was 
a  lawbreaker. 

The  underlying  principle  of  the  operation 
of  children's  courts  is  the  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  the  offender  under  sixteen  years  of 
age  should  not  be  judged  or  punished  by 
adult  standards;  that  he  should  not  be  ar- 
rested, indicted,  convicted,  imprisoned,  or 
punished  as  a  criminal.  Evidence  of  the 
offense  is  not  regarded  as  proof  of  criminal- 
ity but  rather  as  light  on  the  question  as  to 
how  the  state,  standing  in  loco  parentis,  can 
best  exercise  its  parental  function  in  the 
formation  of  the  embryo  character  needed  to 
make  the  boy  a  good  citizen. 

The  child  is  not  punished  to  make  an 
example  of  him,  nor  to  reform  him — but  to 
258 


CHILDREN'S  COURTS 

form  him.  Reformation  implies  the  change 
of  a  character  already  formed.  The  child's 
character  is  in  an  evolutionary  period,  sus- 
ceptible to  formation  but  not  to  reformation. 
The  criminal  power  of  the  state  metes  out 
punishment  for  reformation  and  as  a  deter- 
rent to  other  persons  who  may  be  tempted 
to  violate  the  law.  The  parental  authority 
of  the  state  is  exercised  to  train  the  boy  to 
be  good  and  to  remove  him  from  the  vicious 
environments  which  chain  him  to  delin- 
quency. 

Boys  are  naturally  good — not  bad.  A 
study  of  the  records  of  juvenile  offenders 
will  show  that  there  are  four  dominant 
causes  of  delinquency,  stated  here  in  the  or- 
der of  their  importance,  for  none  of  which  is 
the  boy  himself  directly  responsible,  namely: 
environment,  poor  training  or  lack  of  train- 
ing, the  bad  example  of  parents,  and  hered- 
ity. I  do  not  subscribe  to  the  theory  of 
259 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

the  "innate  cussedness"  of  boys.  The  "in- 
nate cussedness"  of  parents,  in  the  last  analy- 
sis, is  usually  the  propelling  factor  in  juve- 
nile delinquency. 

The  establishment  of  children's  courts  has 
been  significant  in  the  awakening  of  the  pub- 
lic mind  to  the  state's  duty  toward  those  of 
its  children  who  from  parental  neglect  or 
otherwise  are  delinquent  or  dependent.  This 
moral  awakening  to  the  consciousness  of 
governmental  responsibility  for  the  child  has 
manifested  itself  in  many  states  in  the  enact- 
ment of  laws  for  the  establishment  of  juve- 
nile courts,  and  in  others  in  the  revivification 
and  enforcement  of  sleeping  statutes  de- 
signed to  meet  the  juvenile  problem. 

But  the  state's  duty  does  not  end  with  the 
placing  of  laws  on  the  statute  books ;  it  still 
remains  for  them  to  be  made  effective  by  a 
judge  who  not  only  knows  the  law  but  who 
is  inspired  by  a  sympathetic  understanding 
260 


CHILDREN'S  COURTS 

of  child  problems  and  child  nature;  one  who 
is  able  to  ingratiate  himself  into  the  confi- 
dence of  the  boy  and  thereby  become  his 
friend,  helper,  and  co-worker  in  his  salva- 
tion. A  knowledge  of  adolescent  psychol- 
ogy will  be  of  great  help  in  getting  the 
juvenile  viewpoint  which  is  so  essential  for  a 
solution  of  the  problems  of  wayward  chil- 
dren. In  a  report  by  the  Honorable 
Samuel  J.  Barrows,  Commissioner  for  the 
United  States  on  the  International  Prison 
Commission,  he  has  this  to  say  con- 
cerning the  fitness  of  a  judge  of  such 
court:  "The  personality  of  the  judge, 
as  well  as  that  of  the  probation  of- 
ficer, is  an  element  of  vast  importance  in 
the  success  of  any  juvenile  court.  Such  a 
court  cannot  be  run  on  automatic  or  me- 
chanical methods.  Let  it  be  reduced  to  a 
mere  technical  mechanism  of  rules  and  pro- 
cedure and  it  will  fail  altogether.  A  firm 
261 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

yet  sympathetic,  tactful  man  of  magnetic 
personality,  as  well  as  of  legal  knowledge, 
who  understands  boys  and  can  secure  their 
confidence  is  the  man  needed  for  this  work; 
and  some  such  men  have  already  been  called 
to  this  position." 

To  the  same  effect  is  the  testimony  of 
Judge  Stubbs  of  the  Juvenile  Court  of  In- 
dianapolis as  to  the  necessity  of  securing 
the  offender's  confidence:  "It  is  the  per- 
sonal touch  that  does  it.  I  have  often  ob- 
served that  if  I  sat  on  a  high  platform  be- 
hind a  high  desk,  such  as  we  had  in  our  city 
court,  with  the  boy  on  the  prisoner's  bench 
some  distance  away,  that  my  words  had  lit- 
tle effect  on  him;  but  if  I  could  get  close 
enough  to  him  to  put  my  hand  on  his  head 
or  shoulder,  or  my  arm  around  him,  in 
nearly  every  such  case  I  could  get  his  confi- 
dence." 

The  probation  system  and  probation  of- 
262 


CHILDREN'S  COURTS 

fleers  are  necessary  and  effective  elements  in 
the  operation  of  juvenile  courts.  The  func- 
tion of  the  probation  officer  is  to  investigate 
the  facts  before  trial,  and  after  probation 
to  visit  the  child  in  his  home;  keep  in  close 
touch  with  his  conduct  and  school  attend- 
ance; admonish  or  cite  for  punishment 
parents  who  in  any  way  have  contributed  to 
the  child's  delinquency;  advise  and  encour- 
age the  child  and  report  conditions  to  the 
court.  Most  courts  have  one  or  more  paid 
probation  officers,  the  others  being  volun- 
teers. One  Indiana  court  was  fortunate  in 
having  the  assistance  of  two  hundred  vol- 
unteer probation  officers  who  responded  in 
turn  whenever  needed  to  assist  in  the  work 
of  probation  and  parole.  The  effectiveness 
of  a  juvenile  court  is  measured  by  the  abil- 
ity, efficiency,  and  character  of  its  judge  and 
probation  officers. 

Judge  Ben  B.  Lindsey  of  the  Juvenile 
263 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

Court  of  Denver,  a  leading  authority  on  this 
subject,  said: 

"Of  course  a  juvenile-court  system,  while 
under  any  average  circumstance,  is  bound  to 
be  a  step  in  advance  of  the  old  methods  of 
the  criminal  law  in  dealing  with  children,  yet 
its  permanent  and  more  complete  success 
depends  upon  the  individuals  to  whom  its 
execution  is  intrusted.  We  have  heard  a 
great  deal  about  probation  officers.  Upon 
the  character,  tact,  skill  and  intelligence  of 
the  judge  and  his  assistants — the  probation 
officers — largely  depends  the  success  of  the 
court.  Without  personal  touch,  influence, 
patience,  encouragement  of  the  child,  and 
attempt  to  arouse  all  the  nobler  and  better 
impulses,  and  to  subdue  and  suppress  the 
discords  of  the  soul,  complete  success  is  not 
likely  to  be  attained.  The  law  itself  is  of 
small  importance  compared  to  these  ele- 
ments. There  is  no  higher  or  more  impor- 
264 


CHILDREN'S  COURTS 

tant  position  of  a  public  character  in  the 
community  than  that  of  a  probation  officer, 
unless  it  be  the  judge  of  the  juvenile  court. 
Perhaps  this  might  illy  come  from  one  oc- 
cupying that  position,  yet  I  have  no  apology 
to  make  for  the  statement.  I  am  sure  the 
statement  can  be  appreciated  by  few  more 
than  by  one  who  occupied  so  important  a 
position.  As  this  work  progresses  and  its 
wonderful  results  are  constantly  observed, 
the  force  of  the  statement  impresses  itself 
more  and  more  upon  the  mind  of  the  judge 
of  the  juvenile  court." 

The  same  authority  gives  the  following 
resume  of  his  method  of  dealing  with  the 
boys  brought  within  the  jurisdiction  of  his 
court:  "In  my  opinion  the  best  way  to  re- 
form a  boy  waywardly  disposed  is  first  to 
understand  him.  You  have  got  to  get  in- 
side of  him  and  see  through  his  eyes,  under- 
stand his  motives,  have  sympathy  and  pa- 
265 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

tience  with  his  faults,  just  as  far  as  you  can, 
remembering  that  more  can  be  accomplished 
through  love  than  by  any  other  method. 
But  I  would  not  have  you  misunderstand 
me.  It  has  been  well  said  that  love  with- 
out justice  is  sentiment  and  weakness!  We 
must  be  just.  There  is  no  justice  without 
love  and  yet  we  can  judge  in  the  light  of 
both,  forgetting  not  firmness  and  the  right 
of  others.  We  cannot  be  just  without  the 
exercise  of  patience  and  a  plentiful  supply 
of  those  higher  qualities  of  the  soul  which 
must  be  brought  to  bear  if  we  are  able  to 
call  out  the  noblest  impulses  and  the  highest 
and  most  energetic  forces  of  a  child.  The 
juvenile  court  and  the  probation  system  sim- 
ply supply  the  machinery  for  doing  this 
where  heretofore  such  machinery  was  not 
permitted  by  the  law.  We  pursued  the 
blind,  brutal,  incongruous  methods  of  recog- 
nizing a  child  as  an  irresponsible  being  in 
266 


CHILDREN'S  COURTS 

dealing  with  its  dollars  and  cents,  and  de- 
nied it  the  right  of  contracting  even  while  it 
was  a  minor,  whereas  when  it  came  to  of- 
fending against  the  law,  when  its  moral 
welfare,  its  very  soul,  was  involved,  we  de- 
nied its  irresponsibility  and  placed  it  upon 
the  same  plane  and  in  the  same  category 
with  an  adult." 

Supplemental  to  the  juvenile  law  is  the 
adult  delinquency  law,  now  on  the  statute 
books  of  certain  states,  which  makes  it  a  mis- 
demeanor for  any  parent  or  other  person  to 
encourage,  cause,  or  by  any  act  contribute 
to  the  delinquency  of  a  child,  punishable  by 
a  fine  not  to  exceed  $1,000  or  by  imprison- 
ment not  to  exceed  one  year  or  by  both  such 
fine  and  imprisonment;  and  the  juvenile 
court  is  given  exclusive  jurisdiction  over 
such  offenders.  Such  statutes  are  a  com- 
plete recognition  of  parental  responsibility 
for  many  cases  of  juvenile  wrongdoing, 
267 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

such  as  visiting  saloons  to  obtain  beer  for 
parents;  stealing  coal  from  railroad  yards; 
stealing  brasses  or  appliances  from  cars; 
breaking  open  cars  and  stealing  goods,  usu- 
ally edibles,  which  are  taken  home  and  used 
either  with  the  tacit  or  express  consent  of  the 
parents;  and  many  other  thefts  the  fruits  of 
which  are  shared  directly  or  indirectly  by  the 
parents. 

From  this  class  of  depredations  the  boy 
graduates  into  burglary  and  highway  rob- 
bery. The  adult  delinquency  law  punishes 
such  parents  and  drives  home  the  conscious- 
ness of  their  responsibility  to  their  children. 
Practically  all  delinquent  boys  who  appear 
in  our  juvenile  courts  have  one  or  both 
parents  delinquent — delinquent  either  in  the 
active,  direct  sense  stated  above,  or  in  the 
passive,  indirect  sense  of  indifference  or 
ignorance  whereby  their  sons  do  not  receive 
the  moral  training  which  is  their  birthright. 
268 


CHILDREN'S  COURTS 

The  result  of  the  new  method  of  boy-con- 
trol now  used  by  children's  courts  is  to  re- 
duce the  number  of  commitments  to  indus- 
trial schools,  reform  schools,  and  other  simi- 
lar agencies  of  detention  and  correction  from 
seventy-five  to  approximately  ten  in  each 
hundred.  Where  the  environment  of  home 
life  is  bad,  the  court  does  not  hesitate  to  re- 
move the  child  from  his  home  to  a  place  in 
which  he  will  not  be  handicapped  by  such 
influence. 

Our  juvenile  courts  are  at  once  a  standing 
reproach  to  thoughtless,  indifferent,  igno- 
rant, and  wayward  parents  and  a  beacon 
light  for  the  guidance  of  the  unhappy  chil- 
dren of  such  parents  to  useful  citizenship. 
They  inspire  the  admiration,  sympathy,  and 
cooperation  of  every  lover  of  children  who 
sees  in  them  the  future  of  our  great  re- 
public. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

CONCLUSIONS 

EVERY  boy  is  endowed  "with  certain 
inalienable  rights,"  not  the  least  of 
which  is  the  right  to  be  so  trained  that  he  will 
approach  the  stature  of  perfect  manhood.  It 
is  a  birthright  in  the  same  sense  as  his  right 
from  birth  to  food,  clothing,  and  shelter. 
And  this  right  of  the  child  fixes  upon  the  par- 
ent the  corresponding  duty  of  supplying 
intelligent  training  and  character-building 
environment.  The  basis  of  all  boy-training 
is  parent-training,  which  I  wish  to  em- 
\  phasize  even  at  the  risk  of  continued  reitera- 
tion. And  parent-training  should  be  based 
on  a  knowledge  of  boy-psychology  and  its 
application  to  the  evolution  of  the  boy,  which 
270 


CONCLUSIONS 

will  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  many  of  the 
problems  which  we  formerly  attempted  to 
solve  in  the  dark.  His  physical  and  moral 
growth  are  so  dependent  upon  or  intimately 
related  to  his  mental  growth  that  the  solu- 
tion of  his  psychological  problems  will,  in 
most  cases,  tend  to  solve  the  others. 

The  subject  presents  no  serious  difficul- 
ties to  the  parent  who  possesses  a  conscious- 
ness of  its  importance  to  the  welfare  of  his 
son.  All  of  us  have  certain  preconceived 
ideas  on  boy-training  which  emanate  from 
the  adult  viewpoint  and  the  adult  standard 
of  morals.  We  realize  how,  if  we  were  in 
our  son's  place,  we  would  act  or  ought  to  act, 
but  too  often  we  forget  that  this  is  an  appli- 
cation of  the  adult  standard  which  is  psy- 
chologically impossible  to  the  boy.  Get  the 
boy's  viewpoint. 

Patience,  tact,  and  insight;  insight,  tact, 
and  patience  will  work  wonders  with  your 
271 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

boy.  Insight  is  but  another  name  for  the 
boy's  viewpoint ;  it  implies  acquaintance  with 
his  psychology.  The  adult  viewpoint  of 
boy-problems  is  out  of  focus.  We  must  re- 
adjust our  psychologic  lenses  to  see  and  per- 
ceive the  motives  which  actuate  his  conduct, 
if  we  are  to  judge  justly  and  sentence  right- 
eously. While  the  parent  is  passing  judg- 
ment on  his  son's  acts,  he  should  not  forget 
to  pass  judgment  on  his  own  judgment. 
In  training  your  boy,  "you  are  handling 
soul-stuff  and  destiny  waits  just  around  the 
corner." 

Again  I  would  stress  the  need  of  a  com- 
panionship between  father  and  son  which 
should  attain  the  intimacy  of  chumship. 
Such  relationship  is  indispensable  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  all  his  difficulties,  trials  and  troubles, 
for  he  will  attempt  to  solve  them  in  his  own 
crude  way  if  there  is  no  one  to  whom  he 
can  lay  bare  his  soul  in  the  belief  that  he  will 
272 


CONCLUSIONS 

find  sympathetic  understanding  and  advice. 
Fewer  sons  would  go  astray  if  more  fathers 
would  be  big  brothers  to  them.  The  founda- 
tion of  such  companionship  is  laid  in  infancy 
and  early  boyhood,  but  it  is  neglected  and 
frequently  lost  at  puberty,  at  which  time  it 
is  most  needed.  We  are  quite  willing  to  ac- 
cept the  pleasures  of  association  with  the 
light-hearted  frankness  and  joyousness  of 
infancy,  but  too  often  we  evade  the  responsi- 
bility of  sharing  the  burdens  of  the  adoles- 
cent. 

Few  fathers  know  their  adolescent  sons. 
It  is  true  that  they  recognize  the  exterior 
boy  and  are  familiar  with  his  patent  activi- 
ties, but  they  seldom  know  his  inner  self  and 
it  is  his  inner  self  which  needs  help.  Un- 
fortunately, we  men  are  endowed  with  a  su- 
perfluous amount  of  egotism  which  causes 
us  to  assume  that  our  sons  will,  through 
heredity  or  force  of  our  example,  absorb  or 
273 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

inhale  much  of  our  surplus  moral  virtue. 
Few  boys  can  work  out  their  own  salvation. 
The  let-alone  policy  is  no  policy  at  all.  A 
passive  system  of  training  cannot  be  com- 
mended for  results.  Instead,  a  plan  of  ac- 
tive, suggestive,  sympathetic,  intelligent, 
and  informative  cooperation  will  produce  the 
same  beneficial  results  when  applied  to  the 
boy-problem  as  to  a  business  problem. 

•ertain  apparent  deficiencies  of  intellect 
as  well  as  of  character  are  often  the  result 
of  influences  far  removed  from  those  which 
are  commonly  assigned  as  their  compelling 
!   causes.     It  is  usual  for  us  to  look  for  the 
immediate  and  proximate  causes  of  ailments 
while  remote  causes  are  often  unsuspected. 
Among  such  causes  are  the  physical  abnor- 
malities  known  as  adenoids  and  hypertro- 
phied  tonsils,  both  of  which  exercise  sinister 
^  influence  in  repressing  the  growth  of  intel- 
Vlect  and  character.    It  is  now  generally  con- 
\  274 


CONCLUSIONS 

ceded  by  the  medical  profession  that  these 
conditions  exercise  such  a  profound  influ- 
ence on  the  physical  and  nervous  system 
that  the  free  and  normal  development  of  in- 
tellect as  well  as  of  character  is  retarded. 
Frequently  the  boy  who  is  backward  in 
school  and  who  often  displays  tendencies  to- 
ward truancy,  evasion,  and  falsehood  because 
of  his  mental  retardation  has  reached  this 
state  on  account  of  his  physical  condition. 

The  correction  of  astigmatism,  myopia, 
and  other  defects  of  eyesight  (alarmingly 
prevalent  among  children)  by  supplying  him 
with  proper  eyeglasses  uniformly  results  in 
better  school  grades  as  well  as  marked  im- 
provement in  cheerfulness.  The  evil  effects 
of  impaired  hearing,  decayed  teeth,  and  mal- 
nutrition on  intellectual  progress  are  also 
noticeable.  The  backward,  indolent  boy 
should  always  have  the  advice  and  assistance 
of  the  physician,  the  oculist,  and  the  dentist 
275 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

^before  he  receives  blame  for  either  mental  de- 
Ificiency  or  laziness. 

A  The  effects  of  heredity  and  prenatal  in- 
/  fluence  in  determining  the  character  of  the 
f  child  have  been,  in  the  opinion  of  many  in- 
vestigators, greatly  overestimated  by  the 
popular  mind.  The  causative  influence  of 
training  (and  environment  which  is  a  part 
of  training)  is  immeasurably  more  potent  in 
the  upbuilding  of  strong  moral  qualities  than 
heredity.  The  records  of  the  Children's 
Aid  Society  of  New  York,  covering  more 
than  38,000  children,  many  of  whom  are  the 
offspring  of  drunken  and  criminal  fathers 
and  dissolute  mothers,  show  beyond  cavil 
that  a  good  home  with  love  and  moral  train- 
ing will  usually  submerge  hereditary  ten- 
lencies  be  they  ever  so  vicious.  A  very  large 
5fbportion  of  these  children  of  delinquent 
parents,  stamped  (according  to  the  theory  of 
heredity)  with  rotten  physiques  and  rottener 
276 


CONCLUSIONS 

characters,  have,  through  good  training  and 
good  environment,  developed  into  law-abid- 
ing and  useful  citizens.  Among  them  may 
be  mentioned  two  governors  of  states,  two 
congressmen,  four  judges,  one  justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  nine  members  of  state 
legislatures,  thirty-five  lawyers,  eighty-six 
teachers,  nineteen  physicians,  twenty-four 
ministers,  sixteen  journalists,  twenty- 
nine  bankers,  and  countless  farmers, 
mechanics,  clerks  and  business  men.  The 
theory  of  the  "inherent  depravity"  of  the 
boy,  whether  .attributed  to  heredity  or  to 
an  act  of  God,  is  a  rapidly  fading  myth. 
The  boy  is  inherently  good — not  bad. 

First  know  your  son  and  love  him;  then 
you  will  be  able  to  help  him.  When  you 
come  to  know  the  boy — even  the  adolescent 
— he  is  an  exceedingly  lovable  creature;  and 
his  inherent  potentialities  for  future  excel- 
lence should  be  our  inspiration  for  such  as- 
277 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

sistance  as  will  build  them  into  perfect  man- 
hood. 

Do  not  deceive  yourself  with  the  belief 
that  your  Johnny  is  different  from  other 
boys  and  that  therefore  the  principles  of  boy- 
psychology  have  no  application  to  him  and 
to  his  problems.  Diversities  of  temperament 
and  character  differentiate  individuals,  but 
all  boys  possess  a  common  nature  whose  evo- 
lution progresses  according  to  fixed  laws. 
Idiosyncrasies  and  abnormalities  of  character 
are  of  slow  growth.  They  do  not  erupt  sud- 
denly like  the  measles.  It  must  be  obvious, 
on  consideration,  that  no  simple  panacea  can 
be  found  for  the  speedy  cure  of  such  complex 
and  diverse  diseases  of  character.  Good 
training  and  wholesome  environment  sup- 
plied throughout  boyhood  will  make  good, 
wholesome  character  in  manhood. 

We  may  summarize,  in  so  far  as  it  is  pos- 
sible to  do  so  (of  necessity,  crudely  and  im- 
278 


CONCLUSIONS 

perfectly)  the  principles  of  boy-training  in 
the  following  statements: 

"Better  boys!"  should  be  our  slogan. 

Intelligent  training  is  the  birthright  of 
every  child. 

The  boy  is  the  mirror  of  his  home. 

The  wayward  boy  is  usually  the  son  of  a 
wayward  parent. 

When  we  reclaim  wayward  parents  we 
will  reclaim  wayward  boys. 

The  average  parent  is  either  unskilled  or 
underskilled  in  boy-training. 

The  first  step  in  boy-training  is  the  edu- 
cation of  the  parent. 

The  intelligent  parent  is  the  natural  and 
best  teacher  of  his  own  child. 

The  busy  boy  is  the  best  boy. 

Constant  activity  is  the  key  to  his  evolu- 
tion. 

Encourage  athletics  and  out-of-door  ac- 
tivities for  the  growing  boy. 
279 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

Work  with  boys,  not  for  them,  produces 
the  best  results. 

Get  the  juvenile  viewpoint. 

Insight  and  patience  are  the  corner  stones 
of  boy-training. 

Every  father  can  become  a  hero  to  his  son 
through  chumship. 

Through  play  the  boy  attains  a  large  part 
of  his  growth — physical,  mental,  and  moral. 

Fix  the  habit  of  obedience  early. 

Every  boy  is  a  gangster  at  heart.  En- 
courage him  to  join  a  good  gang  instead  of 
a  bad  one. 

Never  punish  him  in  anger.  He  has  a 
keen  sense  of  justice.  Let  the  punishment 
fit  the  "crime." 

The  mother's  influence  on  the  child  is  most 
potent  before  puberty — the  father's  after 
puberty. 

Adolescence  is  the  period  of  storm  and 
stress  in  which  incongruities  of  conduct  and 
280 


CONCLUSIONS 

character  are  certain  to  appear.  With  your 
patient  helpfulness  he  will  outgrow  them. 

Train  by  positive,  helpful  suggestion, 
rather  than  negative  repression.  Never  pro- 
hibit an  act  without  suggesting  a  substitute 
to  fill  the  void.  Give  him  your  reasons  for 
the  change. 

Environment  molds  a  score,  where  hered- 
ity molds  one. 

Do  your  part  in  building  up  symmetrically 
all  four  sides  of  his  nature — physical,  men- 
tal, moral,  and  spiritual— and  the  result  will 
be  God's  noblest  work— a  Man! 

What  profound  emotions  are  stirred  in  the 
father's  breast  when  he  realizes  that  his  long 
years  of  intelligent  training  have  borne  fruit 
in  the  son  he  has  sired;  and  what  supreme 
joy  comes  to  the  mother  when  she  beholds 
her  son  standing  at  the  threshold  of  superb 
manhood  and  she  can  truly  say,  "I  mothered 

a  man!" 

281 


YOUR  BOY  AND  HIS  TRAINING 

If  I  have  seemed  too  severe  in  my  stric- 
tures of  delinquent  parents,  it  is  because  of 
a  desire,  grounded  in  the  necessities  of  the 
case,  to  impress  upon  them  duties  and 
responsibilities  which  are  so  frequently  neg- 
lected. If  I  have  seemed  too  ardent  a  cham- 
pion of  the  adolescent,  I  offer  no  apology 
but  the  fact  that  he  is  often  misunderstood 
and  needs  an  advocate  to  present  his  side  of 
the  case  at  the  bar  of  parental  judgment. 

Happy  the  man  who  has  a  son  and  thrice 
happy  he  who  has  three! 

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